Senators to Bush: Stay out of Iran

[rodeodance]

Senators to Bush: Stay out of Iran
POSTED: 10:45 p.m. EST, January 11, 2007
Story Highlights• Biden warns secretary of state against cross-border raids
• Hagel makes comparison to bombing of Cambodia during Vietnam War
• Rice says president will do what's necessary to protect troops

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's warnings to Iran and Syria to not interfere in Iraq and the arrest of six Iranians in Iraq by U.S. troops raised eyebrows Thursday on Capitol Hill, where senators warned Bush against widening the nearly four-year-old war.

Sen. Joseph Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Bush did not have the authority to send U.S. troops on cross-border raids.

"I believe the present authorization granted the president to use force in Iraq does not cover that, and he does need congressional authority to do that," Biden, D-Delaware, said during a Thursday hearing on Iraq. "I just want to set that marker." (Watch heated exchanges between Rice and several senators )

Rice did not directly reply to Biden's remark, but she said the country expects Bush "to do what is necessary to protect our forces." Biden sent a follow-up letter to the White House after Thursday's hearing, calling on Bush to explain his position.

In his Wednesday night speech announcing the deployment of more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, Bush blamed Iraq's neighbors for stoking the violence there and accused Iran in particular of "providing material support for attacks on American troops." (Watch how the plan will work ).........


http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/11/iraq.iran/index.html?section=cnn_topstories&eref=yahoo

[midnight]

1. Bush does not have authority to do cross boarder raids.

Well he did do them. Now what is Biden and the rest of Dems. going to do?