(Xinhua) — A U.S. senior military officer accused Iran on Tuesday of continuing to support Iraqi insurgents by providing training and weapons. "We have no doubt they are still supporting insurgents," said the former senior military commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, at a press conference in Washington. However, Odierno did not view Iran's support to insurgents as along-term threat to Iraqi stability, but he acknowledged the need to "constantly watch it." Meanwhile, the general noted a positive change of Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, which was considered the biggest challenge to U.S. efforts to stabilize the country. "I think he's trying to move them away from a militia-based organization to one that is more - as it started out to be - helping the poor Shiite community have a role and a vote in what goes on in the government of Iraq," he said.
Echoing Odierno's concern on Iran, Adm. William Fallon, the chief of the Central Command governing the troops in the Middle East, told a Tuesday hearing at the Senate that Iran was fanning the flames of global terrorism. He claimed that although the Irani government denied charges of harmful meddling in Iraq, "the facts prove otherwise."
However, Fallon also described Irani President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-day trip to Iraq this week as a "mixed bag" that could offer an opportunity for the Iraqi government to push Iran directly to stop supporting insurgents and start cooperating with coalition forces. Ahmadinejad's visit to Iraq was the first by an Iranian leader since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.