Rice requests extra funds to confront Iran

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Congress on Wednesday to provide $75 million in emergency funding to step up pressure on the Iranian government, including expanding radio and television broadcasts into Iran and promoting internal opposition to the rule of religious leaders.

The request would substantially boost the money devoted to confronting Iran – only $10 million is budgeted to support dissidents in 2006 – and signals a new effort by the Bush administration to persuade other nations to join the United States in a coalition to bolster Iranian activists, halt Iran’s funding of terrorism and stem its nuclear ambitions, State Department officials said.

“The United States will actively confront the policies of this Iranian regime, and at the same time we are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country,” Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on the administration’s foreign affairs budget.

Iranian officials announced this week they have begun enriching uranium, a step that appears likely to ensure its nuclear program will be discussed by the U.N. Security Council next month. But U.S. officials despair that any action by the Security Council will be slow and deliberate, so Wednesday’s effort appears to be part of a sustained campaign to enlist other countries to act against Iran even sooner.

Rice will travel to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week to discuss the “strategic challenge to the world represented by the Iranian regime,” the State Department said. Another senior official, Undersecretary R. Nicholas Burns, also will discuss Iran next week with his counterparts in the “Group of Eight” industrialized nations. Officials will also seek to coordinate strategy on Iran with NATO members.