href around input type submit

why isn't a href around an input type submit not working in IE? (and what can I do to fix it)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org    /TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/style.css" media="screen">
</head>
<body>
<a href="1.html"><input type="submit" class="button_active" value="1"></a>
<a href="2.html"><input type="submit" class="button" value="2"></a>
<a href="3.html"><input type="submit" class="button" value="3"></a>
</body>
</html>

style.css:

* {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

/* CSS Buttons: http://www.web4site.de/css/css-buttons.php */
.button {
    padding:0;
    margin:0;
    border:none;
    font-size:14px;
    background: url(../img/button.gif) no-repeat center;
    color: #000000;
    height:27px;
    width:134px; 
    font-variant:small-caps;
}

.button:hover {
    padding:0;
    margin:0;
    border:none;
    font-size:14px;
    background: url(../img/button.gif) no-repeat center;
    color: #FF0000;
    height:27px;
    width:134px; 
    text-decoration:none;
    font-variant:small-caps;
}

.button_active {
    padding:0;
    margin:0;
    border:none;
    font-size:14px;
    background: url(../img/button.gif) no-repeat center;
    color: #FF0000;
    height:27px;
    width:134px; 
    font-variant:small-caps;
}

This works fine in firefox ...