Mike McConnell, national intelligence director, says Iran, Saudi Arabia are funding insurgents.

Related articles:

Iranian leader, Saudi king meet, urge security for Iraq

Other articles by Eric Rosenberg:

Selection of Airbus to build U.S. tanker fleet is defended Definition of success in Iraq an evolving theme Secretary's refusal to bend armed his foes Iraq strife not civil war, at least by U.S. terms Rumsfeld's rosy predictions fail to match reality Rumsfeld developing revisionist habits Expert: Bin Laden aims to nuke U.S. Taking the prison heat Registering women for draft is posed Smithsonian chief sentenced for illegally possessing feathers

Trades/Construction
arizona portland cement
maintenance electrician General
Grocery/Market Mgr-Cafe/Restaurant Mgr Trades/Construction
Pioneer Landscaping
Yard Person/Loader Operator Trades/Construction
Wentz and Patrick Construction
Carpenters & Helpers Driver/Transportation
CPC Southwest Materials
Drivers Production and Manufacturing
Pioneer Landscaping
Crushing Crew Trades/Construction
Baker Brothers Plumbing
Dry Wallers

WASHINGTON — During his inaugural appearance before Congress last week, the new U.S. intelligence czar made a rare public reference to one of Washington's secret dreads.

Mike McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said there are funds coming from Saudi Arabia, an ostensible U.S. ally, to help Sunni insurgents in Iraq, while Iran is supporting the Shiite militias there.

McConnell's testimony undergirds U.S. concerns that the Iraq civil war could turn into a direct Saudi-Iranian confrontation, with American military forces caught between warring combatants for Islam's two dominant strains.

Separately, Brian Jenkins, a military expert with the Rand Corp., a national security and foreign policy research organization, said: "What we already are seeing in Iraq is an emerging proxy war between Saudi-backed Sunnis and Iranian-backed Shia.

"The insurgency in Iraq is becoming a civil war which for the surrounding powers is a proxy war," he added in an interview.

If that proxy war cascades into a direct Iranian-Saudi military clash, it could imperil much of the world's oil supply. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq are Nos. 1, 3 and 4 respectively in terms of proven oil reserves.

Nawaf Obaid, then a security adviser to the Saudi government, alluded to the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia last November when he warned in an op-ed column that a U.S. withdrawal of forces from Iraq would result in "massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis." The Saudis later fired Obaid after the column was published in the Washington Post.

Tensions between the two nations are the main topic at a summit conference this weekend that leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran held in Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. has a close oil-diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia and a long history of shielding the kingdom, as illustrated by McConnell's reluctance to identify the Saudis as a source for support for the Sunni insurgents. His statement was elicited through persistent questioning by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former assistant attorney general in Michigan.

Levin asked McConnell during a committee hearing about the source of support for Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

McConnell replied: "There is some flow to the Sunni side in terms of funding and weapons and recruits."

Levin continued: "And what countries are those weapons coming from?"

McConnell: "Weapons could come from a variety of countries. Syria probably is one of the major places."

Levin: "What countries other than Syria could either weapons or funding for the Sunni insurgents come from?"

McConnell: The U.S. lacks "clear evidence that it's definitely coming from any one particular government. But there are indications that it could be a variety of countries around Iraq and also from private donors . . .

Levin, interjecting: "What other countries besides Syria? You said that there's evidence that weapons or money for weapons is coming from a number of countries. The one you singled was Syria, but what other countries?"

McConnell: "What I was attempting to say is donors from countries around the area. One would be inside Saudi Arabia, as an example."

McConnell later elaborated that he had "no awareness at this point" whether the Saudi government was directing the support of Sunni insurgents through private donors. Nor did McConnell explain whether Saudi support was flowing to Iraqi insurgents of Sunni allegiance, or to al-Qaida in Iraq — a Sunni organization — or to some combination. Al-Qaida carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, a swath of the Pentagon and killed nearly 3,000 people.

Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, told Levin's committee that "Saudi Arabia as a government is not providing funding" to the Sunni insurgents and that the Saudi government was trying to halt the flow of private funds. "But they still do flow to some extent," he said.

The vast majority of U.S. casualties have taken place in areas controlled by the Sunni insurgency, not by the Shiite militias who are closely linked to Iran, The Boston Globe has reported.

According to data compiled by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (icasualties.org), a nonprofit group that tracks U.S. deaths, 60 percent or more of U.S. deaths have occurred in areas where Sunni insurgents are active. Those insurgents are believed to receive much of their funding and weapons from private donors in Sunni Arab countries, including Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, not Iran.

Only 4 percent of U.S. casualties have taken place in Shiite-controlled areas in the provinces, while about a quarter of total U.S. fatalities have taken place in Baghdad, where both Shiite and Sunni fighters operate, The Globe reported.

The comments from the country's top intelligence officials echo observations by the Iraq Study Group on page 25 of its 84-page report released last December.

"Funding for the Sunni insurgency comes from private individuals within Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States," said the report by the study group headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., "even as those governments help facilitate U.S. military operations in Iraq by providing basing and overflight rights and by cooperating on intelligence issues."

The Saudis have denied they are supporting the Sunni insurgency.

But Steven Simon, a senior member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, said that Saudi funding of the Sunni insurgency "is one of those things that we dare not speak its name."

"There is a renewed desire to protect the U.S.-Saudi, bilateral relationship," said Simon in an interview. "So you don't want to draw public attention to things they are doing that many observers might regard as counter to American interests."