Biden: Alleged assassination plot 'over the top'

[October 12, 2011]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Joe Biden says an alleged plot by Iranian government agents to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in the United States was "really over the top."

Caption: Vice President Joe Biden meets with Montenegro's Prime Minister Igor Luksic on Tuesday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (AP photo by Charles Dharapak)

Biden joined Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in assailing Iran, calling it "an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises" on which nations deal with one another.

Two men, including a member of Iran's special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force, were charged with conspiring to kill the Saudi diplomat.

On CBS's "The Early Show" Wednesday, Biden repeated Clinton's statement that the United States was working with other nations to further isolate Tehran.

Asked how high in the Iranian governmental chain command the purported plot might have been developed, Biden said, "I don't want to speculate on that now."

[Associated Press]

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