New York, May 28: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned today that any effort to remake Iraq in Iran`s image "will be aggressively put down." Rumsfeld said interference in Iraq by its neighbors or its proxies will not be permitted. "Indeed, Iran should be on notice: efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran`s image will be aggressively put down," he said in a speech to the council on foreign relations. The remark came amid us charges that Tehran is seeking to influence events in Iraq, that it is harboring senior Al-Qaeda leaders and that it is developing nuclear weapons. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Iran had responded "insufficiently" to US demands that it crack down on Al-Qaeda and forsake nuclear arms.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the US administration was considering "public and private" actions to destabilize Iran`s Islamic regime.

A US official said Rumsfeld, secretary of state Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice were expected to hold a meeting on Iran policy on Thursday.

Rumsfeld said there had been discussion on whether to deal with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, or deal with the clerics, or not deal with either.

He said the argument for dealing with Khatami was that it would encourage moderate forces.

"The argument against that is that he clearly is there at the whim of the clerics, and each time he moves toward very much reform, he gets his leash, the chain, pulled on him and he is stopped from doing that," Rumsfeld said.

Bureau Report