Senators: Cross-border raids not approved

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. senators warned the Bush administration that congressional authorization hasn't been given to conduct cross-border raids near Iraq.

U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during hearings Thursday that the administration doesn't have the authority to send troops into Iran and Syria as part of Iraq operations, CNN reported Friday.

"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 said. "I just want to set that marker."

Rice responded that the country expects the president "to do what is necessary to protect our forces."

U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said Rice's statements echoed the debate over the Vietnam War, when President Richard Nixon's administration denied U.S. troops were entering Cambodia.

"When our government lied to the American people and said we didn't cross the border going into Cambodia, in fact we did. I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee," said Hagel, who fought in Vietnam. "Madame Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous."