Source: Daily Star, 05-12-2007
Iran on Tuesday exulted at a US intelligence report contradicting earlier Bush administration assertions it was building an atomic bomb, but President George W. Bush said Iran remained dangerous and international pressure should continue.
The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) published on Monday took US friends and foes by surprise after years of statements from Washington accusing Tehran of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program.
The NIE, the consensus view of all 16 US spy agencies, said Iran appeared "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging."
In Vienna, a senior official of the UN nuclear watchdog said the report confirms the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessment that Iran represents "no imminent danger."
Tehran said that the report vindicated its long-standing assertion that its nuclear program had only peaceful civilian aims.
"It's natural that we welcome it when those countries who in the past have questions and ambiguities about this case ... now amend their views realistically," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state radio.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said: "This report proves that Bush's statements - which always speak of the serious threat of Iran's nuclear program - are unreliable and fictitious."
The report, which said that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but was continuing to develop the capacity to enrich uranium, had an immediate impact on moves under way to tighten UN sanctions on Tehran.
China, which has a UN Security Council veto and agreed only reluctantly to earlier sanctions, said the NIE created new conditions. "I think we all start from the presumption that now things have changed," said China's ambassador to the UN, Guangya Wang.
France and Britain joined Bush in saying international pressure must be maintained on Iran, while "Israel", which believes a nuclear Iran could threaten its existence, questioned the report and urged continued pressure on Tehran.
According to several sources, "Israel" believes that even if the Islamic Republic halted its program in 2003, as said in the new US intelligence assessment, it has since been relaunched.
"Iran is probably continuing its program of fabricating a nuclear bomb," "Israeli" Defense (War) Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio, according to its Web site.
"Israeli" Premier Ehud Olmert, amid fears that with the new report "Israel" could find itself isolated in its drive to keep international pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, vowed to push ahead with punitive efforts.
"It is necessary to continue our efforts with our American friends to prevent Iran from obtaining nonconventional weapons," Olmert told Army Radio.
At a news conference in Washington, Bush said the report should in fact be taken as a rallying point for further pressure on Iran and showed that the approach had been successful in the past.
He said the report showed Iran was still developing nuclear technology and could restart a weapons program: "Iran was dangerous. Iran is dangerous. And Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
After what was considered a disappointing meeting between Tehran and the EU last Friday, world powers met last Saturday in Paris to discuss a further round of sanctions over Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for power plants or, potentially, nuclear weapons.
Two UN sanctions resolutions have been passed so far against Iran, unanimously but after diplomatic wrangling among the five permanent UN Security Council members - the US, China, Russia, France and Britain - plus Germany.
But the head of the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog said the report should help ease the standoff and prompt Iran to cooperate fully with the agency.
"This new assessment by the US should help to defuse the current crisis," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement, referring to US rhetoric that suggested Bush was considering military action.
A Western diplomat in Vienna told Reuters: "The report shows that the dual approach - exerting pressure on one hand while offering possibilities of a cooperation on the other - has not been entirely unsuccessful."
Russia has been wary of harsh sanctions, arguing there is no evidence that Iran has sought to develop nuclear arms. Iran's top nuclear negotiator met Russian President Vladimir Putin near Moscow on Tuesday.
"We are pleased to note that your contacts with the IAEA have become more active," Putin told Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, in opening remarks at their meeting. "We expect that all your nuclear programs will be transparent and under the control of this respected organization."
Before meeting with Jalili, the Russian leader had a 40-minute telephone conversation with Bush in which they discussed Iran, a Putin aide said.
US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said he hoped that the report would not encourage Russia and China to stiffen their opposition to further sanctions on Iran.
Bush's critics at home seized on the report to attack the administration's Iran policy.
US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, among senior Democrats who had requested the updated NIE, called for a top-to-bottom review of Iran policy.
"President Bush's heated rhetoric on Iran, including comments about a potential World War III, is even more outrageous now that we know the intelligence community had informed him that it believes Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago," he said.