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Iran's President lashes out at Bush
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-01 19:54
In a speech to thousands of supporters Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad lashed out at the United States and vowed to resist the pressures of
"bully countries" to constrain Tehran's nuclear program, a day before the U.N.
nuclear agency is likely to vote to haul the country before the Security
Council.
Speaking hours after President Bush's State of the Union address, the Iranian
leader derided the United States as a "hollow superpower" that is "tainted with
the blood of nations" and said Tehran would continue its nuclear program.
"Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully
realized," Ahmadinejad told the crowd in the southern Iran city of Bushehr, the
site of Iran's only nuclear power plant.
"Our nation can't give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine
they are the whole world and see themselves equal to the entire globe," he
added.
The crowd responded with chants of "Nuclear energy is our right!"
Referring to Bush directly and the U.S.-led Iraq war, Ahmadinejad said:
"Those whose hands are tainted with blood of nations and are involved in wars
and oppression in any part of the world ... we, hopefully, in the near future
will put you on trial in courts that will be set up by nations."
Iran's defense minister also warned all countries Wednesday against
considering an attack on Iran's nuclear installations. "Any attack against
Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities will meet a swift and crushing response from
the armed forces," Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said, according to the official
Islamic Republic News Agency.
The comments came after Bush increased the pressure on Iran over its nuclear
program, saying in his address Tuesday night that "the nations of the world must
not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons." He said the United
States "will continue to rally the world to confront these threats."
The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors is to
meet in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday, and is expected to report Iran's nuclear
program to the U.N. Security Council. The five permanent members of the Security
Council agreed Tuesday that Iran should be hauled before the powerful body.
The top U.N body has the power to impose economic and political sanctions,
but none of those measures is immediately likely. Under the deal agreed to by
Moscow and Beijing — previous opponents of referral — the Security Council will
likely await a new IAEA report at the next board meeting in March before
deciding on substantive action, leaving more time for talks with Iran.
Iran's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the permanent
members' decision to recommend that Iran's nuclear file go to the Security
Council violated the Nuclear Nonprolifeation Treaty.
Two mass circulation newspapers, Kayhan and Jomhuri-e-Eslami, urged the
government Wednesday to withdraw from the treaty if Iran is referred to the
council.
"Iran's withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would be a
protest against America and its allies' blackmail," wrote Hossein Shariatmadari
in an editorial in the hard-line Kayhan. Shariatmadari is an influential
conservative who is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran insists its nuclear program is civilian only and has no other purpose
than to generate power. Enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor
or the material needed to build a warhead.
On Tuesday, the IAEA said in a report that Iran obtained documents and
drawings on the black market that serve no other purpose than to make an atomic
warhead. The report also confirmed information recently provided by diplomats
familiar with the Iran probe that Tehran has not started small-scale uranium
enrichment since announcing it would earlier this month.
The findings about the design obtained by Iran on the black market were
contained in a confidential report for presentation to the IAEA board and
provided in full to The Associated Press.
A three-year IAEA probe has not found firm evidence to back assertions by the
United States and others that Iran's nuclear activities are a cover for an arms
program but has not been able to dismiss such suspicions either.
First mention of the documents linked to constructing a nuclear warhead was
made late last year in a longer IAEA report. At that time, the agency said only
that they showed how to cast "enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into
hemispherical forms."
In the brief report obtained Tuesday, however, the agency said bluntly that
the 15 pages of text and drawings showing how to cast fissile uranium into metal
were "related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components."
The report said the documents were under agency seal, meaning that IAEA
experts should be able to re-examine them, but "Iran has declined a request to
provide the agency with a copy."
The documents in question were given to Iran by members of the nuclear black
market network, the IAEA said. Iran has claimed it did not ask for the documents
but received them anyway as part of other black market purchases.
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