By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : As President George W. Bush insisted Iran is still dangerous despite new US intelligence report that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, critics are asking him to roll back the rhetoric.
“Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon,” Bush said at a White House news conference Tuesday, a day after 16 US intelligence agencies released their consensus report.
Sticking to his guns, Bush refused to rule out a military strike against Iran saying “all options” are still on the table for dealing with Iran even as he stressed that diplomacy was the best way to resolve the issue.
“The best diplomacy-effective diplomacy-is one in which all options are on the table,” Bush said, asking: “What’s to say they couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons programme?”
Faced with repeated questions about his administration’s credibility in warning that a nuclear Iran could lead to World War III, the president stood by the rhetoric.
He said he did not learn until last week about the specific findings in the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which contradicted a 2005 assessment that Iran “is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure”.
Even without an active nuclear weapons programme, Bush said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election two years ago was cause for renewed concern.
“They hid their programme once. They could hide it again,” Bush said.
Suggesting Iran could become a greater danger to the world in the future without vigilance now, he said: “It’s not going to happen on my watch.”
Repeatedly calling on the international community to put pressure on Iran to suspend its nuclear programme, Bush said he was personally “working the phones”, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to urge US partners to keep up their efforts.
Bush also used the news conference to repeat his demands that congressional Democrats abandon efforts to tie funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to troop withdrawals from Iraq. He called on Congress to send him an emergency funding bill with no strings attached.
But recalling the administration’s more bellicose statements in the run up to the war in Iraq, the Democrats called on Bush to abandon what they described as his overheated rhetoric on Iran and conduct a fresh review of US policy toward it with an emphasis on diplomacy.
In a debate in Iowa broadcast Tuesday on National Public Radio (NPR), seven Democratic presidential candidates joined in criticising Bush’s Iran policy and his statements on the intelligence report.
Frontrunner, Hillary Clinton said Bush should “seize this opportunity and engage in serious diplomacy”.
“President Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology,” said Barack Obama, the rising black star who is fast catching up with the former first lady in the race for Democratic nomination.
A third Democratic hopeful, Senator Joseph R. Biden said that listening to Bush talk about Iran was “like watching a rerun of his statements on Iraq” five years ago.
Denouncing Bush’s “heated rhetoric on Iran,” including his comments raising the spectre of World War III, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid charged that the remarks “further diminish the credibility of a president with a dangerous record of overstating threats”.
“Obviously, we have to address continuing challenges from Iran. We need to ratchet up our diplomacy and continue working with the international community,” said Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
“But it’s time for the president to look at the cold, hard facts on Iran and walk back from the overheated rhetoric. The last thing America needs is to be misled into another war based on hype and trumped-up intelligence,” he said.
Democratic member of the House of Representatives, Jane Harman, who chairs the subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment, called the intelligence estimate “a stunning document – clear, concise and unambiguous about Iran’s present intentions and capabilities”.
Agreeing that Iran “is a tough target,” she said its danger was “made tougher because of the White House’s implacable refusal to talk to its government”.
But Bush said he would agree to talks with Iran only after the country suspended its uranium enrichment programme.