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NEW YORK: The Pentagon is preparing to build a military base near the Iraq-Iran border to curtail the flow of advanced Iranian weaponry to Shiite militants across Iraq, The Wall Street Journal reports.Quoting Major-General Rick Lynch, the commander of the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division, the Journal said yesterday the Pentagon also planned to build fortified checkpoints on the main highways leading from the Iranian border to Baghdad, and install X-ray machines and explosives-detecting sensors at the only formal border crossing between the two countries.The base would be about six kilometres from the Iranian border and would be used for at least two years, the report said. US officials told the paper it was unclear whether it would be among the small number of facilities that would remain in Iraq after any large US withdrawal.The report came on the same day the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and the US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, presented a progress report to Congress on the war.Early yesterday a Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Withington, said he could not comment on the specifics of the report, but said: "Coalition and Iraqi partners will continue to put pressure on the enemy, including disruptions of any supply lines, in an effort to reduce violence and to protect the Iraqi people."As in the days of Noah...
