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Politics & ReligionWell Since every damn forum has one. Might as well leave it out there. This place is loosely moderated and should not be entered if you're weak of heart.
Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hailed the American intelligence assessment concluding that his country was no longer developing nuclear weapons as a big victory today, but President Bush said Iran still had many questions to answer about its past nuclear work.
The new intelligence report, published Monday, concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, seeming to undercut the whole thrust of the Bush administration’s policy on Iran. On Tuesday, Bush warned that Iran was still a danger. In further tough-sounding remarks today, he said bluntly that Iran had to come clean on the work it had done on its nuclear program prior to 2003 or risk international isolation.
Emerging from Air Force One at Eppley Airfield near Omaha, Bush said it was clear from the intelligence assessment “that the Iranian government has more to explain about its nuclear intentions and past actions.”
Bush said the Iranians had a “strategic choice” to make - to fully acknowledge past nuclear activities and suspend their uranium enrichment work, or to “continue on a path of isolation that is not in the best interests of the Iranian people.” He added, “The choice is up to the Iranian regime.”
Ahmadinejad said the intelligence report’s conclusions had come about as a result of Iran’s resistance to international pressure.
“This report tried to extract America from its impasse but it also is a declaration of the Iranian people’s victory against the great powers,” Ahmadinejad said in a rally Wednesday in the western province of Illam, the ISNA student news agency reported. “With the help of God, our people have resisted, are resisting and will resist until the end,” he said, referring to Western efforts to make Iran stop enriching uranium to make nuclear fuel.
“They are disappointed that they cannot make you compromise even an iota,” he added.
Ahmadinejad said the report showed that the Bush administration had admitted to its mistake in misjudging Iran’s nuclear program, which Iran has consistently maintained is for power production, not weapons. “But their attitude does not allow them to admit their mistake and so they have to convey it in other words,” he said.
“We tell them, ‘It is all right, and it is enough that you are confessing to your mistakes’,” he added.
President Bush warned Tuesday that Iran remained a threat despite the intelligence assessment, which said Iran had halted a covert program to develop nuclear weapons four years ago. Bush said the new assessment underscored the need to intensify international efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had long been criticized by the Bush administration for not pressuring Iran enough to curb its nuclear program, said the new American assessment was a “sigh of relief” and that Iran had been “somewhat vindicated” by the report.
The head of the agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the report agreed with the agency’s own conclusions. “Iran has been somewhat vindicated in saying they have not been working on a weapons program, at least for the past few years,” ElBaradei told reporters in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, the Associated Press reported.
The Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov said today that there was no evidence that Iran had ever pursued a nuclear weapons program. “Data that we have seen don’t allow to say with certainty that Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program,” said Lavrov said, according to the A.P. report.
“We will assess the situation regarding a new U.N. Security Council resolution taking into account all these facts, including the U.S. confirmation that it has no information about the existence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran,” he said.
Meanwhile, China, which along with the United States, Britain, France and Russia is a member of the United Nations Security Council, said Tuesday that the report raised questions about new sanctions against Iran, The A.P. reported. “I think the council members will have to consider that, because I think we all start from the presumption that now things have changed,” said China’s ambassador to the United Nations Wang Guangya.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit Wednesday to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, for a meeting with African leaders, declined to comment on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks and repeated Bush’s point that the United States still considered Iran a threat.
“It is the very strong view of the administration that the Iranian regime remains a problematic and dangerous regime and that the international community must continue to unite around the Security Council resolutions that have passed,” she said, the A.P. reported.
“Iran needs to stop enrichment and reprocessing activities because those enriching and reprocessing activities permit, if they are perfected, a state to acquire fissile material for a nuclear weapon,” she said.
So in an incredible display of hubris, the Bush administration again changes its story to avoid admitting any fuckups.
And now that we find out the assumed nuclear weapons program hasn't been functioning for years (contrary to recent statements by the president himself), they maintain that Iran is still a threat because they're enriching uranium legally under the NNPT.
Their entire story has changed. What seemed like an inevitable nuclear winter has now turned into "OMG Iran could one day, possibly, we think, despite our intelligence, have the technology to blow something up!" A contradiction that I'm sure will go down in history as another glaring inconsistency by this administration.
GW wants to roll into Iran, and I'm pretty convinced that he'll do anything to get this country to back him up.
Not really. I am convinced the whole point of the Iraq war was to provide a staging ground for going into Iran. But who would have thunk that we couldn't just walk in, level the place, and a western democratic utopia just spring up to fill the void? Had to put on hold the plans to go into Iran.
Just my $0.02. I guess that means I net $0.98 from this post.
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doublEEsta
Global Warming - A phenomenon where natural climatic cycles coincide with liberal aspirations.
"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
At this point, Im pretty sure he would be impeached in a heartbeat if he had the balls to pull the trigger.
I also blame the NY Times for their liberal stance in reference to this article.
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"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by a mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
"Live in the NOW" - Garth Algar
05 FZ6
Last edited by timd99 : 12-06-2007 at 03:15 PM.
Reason: added pic
Old report said they were making nukes now, new report says that haven't been for years. I'm more curious as to why the reports dont even match, than what they say... because as the Pres is proving, it doesn't matter what the reports say.
"Either way, we're going to hold Iran's feet to the fire and demand they do SOMETHING because we haven't been able to make them do something yet."
Bush Says Iran Must Explain Past Nuclear Work
