On Monday, White House declined to comment on a news report saying that Congress approved late last year President George W. Bush’s funding request of 400 million U.S. dollars to undermine Iran’s leadership.

“I couldn’t comment either way,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said, after The New Yorker magazine reported that the US Congress passed US President George W. Bush’s funding request for a striking increase in such secret operations.

When asked about the chances of U.S. military action against Iran before Bush leaves the White House office in January 2009, Perino restated that Bush “is singularly focused on trying to solve this issue diplomatically.”

The New Yorker, citing former military, intelligence and congressional sources, said that the funding disclosed a “major escalation” in undercover operations aimed at destabilizing the Islamic republic’s religious leadership amid anxiety over Tehran’s nuclear aspirations. These operations include increase in U.S. support for the minority and nonconformist groups and intelligence gathering about Iran’s nuclear facilities, said the article, written and reported by Seymour Hersh.

The U.S ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, outright rejected the allegations of cross-border operations from Iraq into Iran. “I can tell you flatly that US forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran,” he told CNN television.