US Intelligence Counters NeoCon Propaganda That Iran Is Building Nuclear Weapons

National Intelligence Estimate Concludes Iran Has Had No Viable Nuclear Weapons Program Since 2003

Cheney Stifled Release Of Report For More Than A Year

Four years ago, the cream of the United States intelligence agencies came to an understanding that Iran was, in fact, not working on nuclear weapons, and that it's nuclear energy program was, most certainly, peaceful.

More than a year ago, US Vice President, Dick Cheney, a key cheerleader in the "We Must Bomb Iran Now" NeoCon warpig pack, got his hands on the National Intelligence Assessment that declared Iran was nuclear weapons free, and would remain so for years to come, and he buried the report, while still going on TV and talking up the supposed threat posed by Iran's nuclear energy programs.

When President Bush talked about Iran and World War 3 in October, he already knew that his own intelligence community had found proof that Iran had built nuclear weapons, or was even getting close to beginning construction of nuclear weapons. All the same, he told the world :

"...I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon…"

Former US ambassador, John Bolton, has literally become a full-time spokesman for the 'Bomb Iran Now' crowd, along with Fox News and most of the Murdoch newspaper empire. The presumption that Iran is, right now, working on nuclear weapons falls from the mouths of news show hosts across American, British and Australian TV network not because this is what their own sources are telling them, but because this is what they see other media saying is going on in Iran.

In the light of the revelations from US intelligence, the opposition by Russia and China to further, harsher sanctions against Iran makes a lot more sense.

From the New York Times :

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new estimate declares with “high confidence” that a military-run Iranian program intended to transform that raw material into a nuclear weapon has been shut down since 2003, and also says with high confidence that the halt “was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working.

The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program — an estimate that led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the report’s conclusions turned out to be wrong.

Intelligence officials said that the specter of the botched 2002 N.I.E. hung over their deliberations over the Iran assessment, leading them to treat the document with particular caution.

“We felt that we needed to scrub all the assessments and sources to make sure we weren’t misleading ourselves,” said one senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity."

Think Progress reported on November 8 that Vice President Dick Cheney had, successfully up until then, kept the National Intelligence Estimate under wraps because it did not present a vivid and active case for military action on Iran, and points out that the dispute around the NIE echoes the build up to the War On Iraq in 2002, with the White House stiffling dissent and putting pressure on intelligence analysts.

And this from Think Progress in November 2006 when the Iran NIE was first leaked :

On CNN, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh reported that a new CIA assessment concludes that “there’s no evidence Iran is doing anything that puts them close to a bomb.” Despite the intelligence agency’s conclusion, Hersh reports that the White House is still aggressively moving ahead with preparations for a military conflict with Iran.

As part of the White House’s preparations for Iran, Hersh says President Bush and Vice President Cheney are “stovepiping” intelligence and keeping information provided by the Israelis hidden from the CIA.

The Israelis are telling the White House, according to Hersh’s new article “The Next Act,” that they have a reliable agent inside Iran who reports that the nation is working on a trigger for a bomb. “Of course the people in the CIA want to know who [the agent] is, obviously,” Hersh said. “They certainly want to know what other evidence he has of actual making of a warhead. This is the internecine fight that’s going on — the same fight, by the way, that we had before Iraq.”

Seymour Hersh's New Yorker Story On How BushCo. Tried To Build The Case For War On Iran In 2006

UN Nuclear Watchdog Says Yes To Russia's Plan To Supply Iran With Nuclear Fuel

Iran's Navy Now Has Stealth-Capable Subs, Military Unveils Ballistic Missiles That Can Reach Israel, US Bases In Middle East

Bush Warned Of World War 3 Over Iranian Nukes That He Knew Did Not Exist

Russian Expert : Only Days Until US Begins War On Iran

US Troops Reported To Be Massing On Iranian Border




Here's some snippets from Russian media that have barely registered, let alone recieved any coverage, in Australian, American or British press.

You can write it all off as Russian propaganda if you like. Pray that it's just Russian propaganda, but it fits into the Western media reports of US forces massing in the Persian Gulf, and rising tensions with Russia and the Saudis. It certainly seems like something big is coming.

(Some of these snippets were translated from French via Babelfish, so they might read a bit rough)

From Novosti :

Russian military experts estimate that the planning of the American military attack against Iran passed the point of nonreturn on February 20, when the director of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei, recognized, in his report....the incapacity of the Agency "to confirm the peaceful character of the nuclear program of Iran".

...a military action will proceed during the first week of April, before Easter....when the "Western opinion" is on leave. It may be also that Iran is struck Friday 6, public holiday in the Moslem countries.

The report cited claims the attacks will last for a total of twelve hours, and will run under the code name 'Operation Bite'.

A "score" of Iranian nuclear and military installations will be targeted, along with "centres of study" and laboraties tied to the nuclear program.

Predicted response from Iran will be to sink tankers on the Strait of Ormuz to cut oil shipments. Some 25% of the world's oil flows through these straits.

The aim of the attack is set the Iranian nuclear program back by several years.

If the attacks by the United States go ahead, expect oil to roar up and beyond $80 per barrel within days. Back in the US, this could translate into more than $5 a gallon.

What the American media is promoting is the "show of force" the United States is now undertaking in the Persian Gulf. The French are in there as well.

From the Washington Post :

The U.S. Navy on Tuesday began its largest demonstration of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by a pair of aircraft carriers and backed by warplanes flying simulated attack maneuvers off the coast of Iran.

The maneuvers bring together two strike groups of U.S. warships and more than 100 U.S. warplanes to conduct simulated air warfare in the crowded Gulf shipping lanes.

The U.S. exercises come just four days after Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines who Iran said had strayed into Iranian waters near the Gulf. Britain and the U.S. Navy have insisted the British sailors were operating in Iraqi waters.

A French naval strike group, led by the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, was operating simultaneously just outside the Gulf. But the French ships were supporting the NATO forces in Afghanistanand not taking part in the U.S. maneuvers, officials said.

Overall, the exercises involve more than 10,000 U.S. personnel on warships and aircraft making simulated attacks on enemy shipping with aircraft and ships, hunting enemy submarines and finding mines.

A Russian report on US troop activity from within Iraq, close to Iran's borders :

Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.

He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost."

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.

A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.

The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006.

Claim : US Poised To Strike Iran Nuke Targets From Bulgarian Bases

Iran Moves On Iraq, Bush Sounds Warning, US Democrats Open Negotiations With Maliki Government

UN, Russia, China Calls For "Time Out" Over Iran Nuclear Energy Controversy

February 21 is the deadline imposed by the United Nations Security Council for Iran to stop enriching uranium.

Iran currently gives no indication that it is going to adhere to that deadline. The United Nations, and Russia separately, are both sounding out the United States about a "time out" over pressuring the Iranians to wind back the growth of their nuclear energy cycle.

From Israel, and the Israel lobby in the United States, comes a seemingly endless sheeting of bog-standard warnings about what Iran will do with its nuclear weapons, and how much of a threat Iran armed with nuclear weapons will be, despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly states there is no proof, nor indication, that Iran is building nuclear weapons, or is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

But Israel's anti-Iran PR offensive has already worked.

Discussions can be heard all across newspapers, TV, radio from New York City to York, England, and all across Australia, where debates roll on how The West should react to a nuclear-armed Iran, not whether or not they actually have nuclear weapons in the first place.

Or will at any time in the next decade.

February 21 is now the date to watch.

The United States already has enough water-based firepower in the Persian Gulf to strike hundreds of targets inside Iran, and another aircraft carrier on the way.

Likewise, Israel's air force remains on a virtual two-minute-warning, ready to act on its own, or as part of an air strike offensive launched by President Bush, without the consent of the US Congress.


From the Sunday Herald :

President Bush is preparing to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of April and the US Air Force's new bases in Bulgaria and Romania would be used as back-up in the onslaught, according to an official report from Sofia.

"American forces could be using their two USAF bases in Bulgaria and one at Romania's Black Sea coast to launch an attack on Iran in April," the Bulgarian news agency Novinite said.

The American build-up alongthe Black Sea, coupled with the recent positioning of two US aircraft carrier battle groups off the Straits of Hormuz, appears to indicate president Bush has run out of patience with Tehran's nuclear misrepresentation and non-compliance with the UN Security Council's resolution.

President Ahmeninejad of Iran has further ratcheted up tension in the region by putting on show his newly purchased state of the art Russian TOR-Ml anti-missile defence system.

Israel, according to the Washington Times, has its own plans for taking out Iran's nuclear facilities :

A military source tells us the talk among Israeli military officials is how and when to counter Iran's nuclear weapons program, most likely in a pre-emptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The Israelis know that any attack will require overflying U.S.-dominated Iraq, but one solution would be to set up a secret base in another area between Iran and Israel to refuel Israel's bombers.

The Israelis in recent months have purchased large numbers of U.S. precision-guided joint direct attack munitions, or JDAM, kits for their bombs and special bunker-buster explosives that could be used to destroy underground Iranian nuclear facilities.

Our source said the Israelis know that their attack on Iran would be far bloodier and much more difficult than the daring 1981 bombing attack against Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor.

"They will have to strike during the day to make sure they get the technicians and scientists," the source told us.

Also, an anti-nuclear military strike will cause collateral damage because many of the Iranian nuclear facilities are located close to civilian population centers.

At least 13 Iranian nuclear facilities are known and can be located publicly on Google Earth mapping software. They include facilities at Tehran, Natanz, Arak, Lashkar-Abad, Isfahan, Ardekan, Bushehr and Gachin. Most are underground and have advanced air defense missiles for protection.

Key targets: the Natanz nuclear facility, a military plant about 200 miles south of Tehran that is the location of at least one centrifuge cascade that is thought to be where nuclear fuel for weapons is being developed.

The Bushehr nuclear reactor on the Persian Gulf coast also will be a key target, and any bombing there risks killing scores of Russians who are part of construction crews for the reactor facility.

The Bush administration is hardening its position on Iran but is holding Israel in check from attacking. That said, in 1981, the United States had no warning of the Osirak raid until after the F-16s and F-15s were in the air.

Iran isn't waiting for the United States/Coalition retreat from Iraq before they set up the financial infrastructure they need to gradually absorb the now Shiite dominated country into their own, if that's what they're actually planning to do. It begins with the founding of banks and solid financial infrastructure.

From the New York Times :

Iran's ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.

Iran’s plan, as outlined by the ambassador, carries the potential to bring Iran into further conflict here with the United States, which has detained a number of Iranian operatives in recent weeks and says it has proof of Iranian complicity in attacks on American and Iraqi forces.

The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, said Iran was prepared to offer Iraq government forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called “the security fight.”

In the economic area, Mr. Qumi said, Iran was ready to assume major responsibility for Iraq reconstruction...

“We have experience of reconstruction after war,” Mr. Qumi said, referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “We are ready to transfer this experience in terms of reconstruction to the Iraqis.”

Mr. Qumi also acknowledged, for the first time, that two Iranians seized and later released by American forces last month were security officials, as the United States had claimed. But he said that they were engaged in legitimate discussions with the Iraqi government and should not have been detained.

He ridiculed the evidence that the American military has said it collected, including maps of Baghdad delineating Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods — the kind of maps, American officials have said, that would be useful for militias engaged in ethnic slaughter. Mr. Qumi said the maps were so common and easily obtainable that they proved nothing.

“They worked in the security sector in the Islamic Republic, that’s clear,” Mr. Qumi said, referring to Iran. But he said that the Iranians were in Iraq because “the two countries agreed to solve the security problems.” The Iranians “went to meet with the Iraqi side,” he said.

In a surprise announcement, Mr. Qumi said Iran would soon open a national bank in Iraq, in effect creating a new Iranian financial institution right under the Americans’ noses. A senior Iraqi banking official, Hussein al-Uzri, confirmed that Iran had received a license to open the bank, which he said would apparently be the first “wholly owned subsidiary bank” of a foreign country in Iraq.

“This will enhance trade between the two countries,” Mr. Uzri said.

Any Iranian military assistance to Iraq would be fraught with potential difficulties. Aside from provoking American objections, such assistance could further alienate Sunni Arabs, many of whom already suspect that Iran, overwhelmingly Shiite, is encouraging Iraq’s Shiite-led government in persecuting them.

A number of American and Iraqi officials said Sunday that it was difficult to respond to Mr. Qumi’s statements until they had been communicated through official routes. A spokesman for the American Embassy in Baghdad, Lou Fintor, declined to address the statements.

“We are welcoming all the initiatives to participate in the process of reconstruction,” said Qasim Daoud, a former national security adviser who is now a secular Shiite member of Parliament. “My belief is that our strategic alliance is with the Americans, but at the same time we are looking for the participation of any country that would like to participate,” Mr. Daoud said.

Mr. Qumi also warned the United States against playing out tensions in what he called “the nuclear file” in Iraq. “We don’t need Iraq to pay the cost of our animosity with the Americans,” Mr. Qumi said.

As the interview was breaking up, Mr. Qumi made one last stab at the Americans. If Iran is allowed to undertake reconstruction activities in Iraq, he said, all international construction companies would be welcome. “Urge the American companies to come here,” he said.

The Response from President Bush

From Raw Story :

In a lengthy National Public Radio interview with Juan Williams today, President George W. Bush warned Iran, one of the nations in Bush's so-called "axis of evil," over its nuclear ambitions and threatened potential retaliation for Iran's doings in war-torn Iraq.

"If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly," said the President, who also remarked, "I take the Iranian nuclear threat very seriously, even though the intel on Iraq was not what it was thought to be."

Yet Bush also insisted, in response to rumors of a pre-emptive U.S. attack on Teheran, "I have no intent upon going into Iran..."

Going into Iran is not the same as bombing Iran from the sky, or the Gulf.

Only crazed right wing war pigs seriously discuss the merits of deploying US troops on the ground in Iran. The debate as it now stands is over whether the US will launch air strikes at Iran's nuclear energy facilities, or whether Israel will do it.

And as Bush made clear, "I have no intent upon going into Iran..." He didn't say anything about "going over Iran".

While the relationship between President Bush and Iraq's Maliki government continues to descend into something akin to an emotional scratching post, with the US as the cat, the Democrats, under Nancy Pelosi, now in control of the US Congress, have entered into their own negotiations with Maliki to bring the war to a close.


From the LA Times :

Representatives of Iraq's government are hedging their bets on America's political future, hoping to keep U.S. support for their country strong by building ties with a Democratic Party that now controls Congress and is closely scrutinizing President Bush's Iraq policy.

"There's a decision to be in contact, find out what they want, what their concerns are and to tell them of our concerns as well," said Ali Adeeb, a Shiite lawmaker and close associate of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

Republicans have dominated Iraq policy since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Many of the first U.S. officials in Iraq were handpicked party activists.

In one sense, the Nov. 7 election that handed Democrats control of Congress changed little, even though it was largely viewed as a repudiation of the White House's Iraq policy. The State and Defense departments are still the primary instruments of policy in Iraq.

A top government official close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who ended a brief visit to Iraq on Saturday, said the Bush administration remains the final arbiter of decisions on how much continued U.S. military and financial support the Iraqis receive.

But the election that changed the political dynamic in Washington also altered the rules of the game here.

Iraqi leaders studied and discussed the possibility of a Democratic takeover for months before the vote. They concluded early that even the most staunchly antiwar Democrats would not abandon Iraq. In heated discussions, lawmakers reminded one another that it was Democratic President Clinton who signed the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which funded the opposition movements now in power.

The Shiite Muslim leadership has informally recommended to ministerial and parliamentary delegations heading to Washington that they cultivate closer relationships with Democrats as well as Republicans.

Many pointed out advantages to the Democrats' increased sway over Iraq policy. Government officials said they had generally found the Democratic position on handing over security to Iraqi forces sooner rather than later closer to theirs.

"I see that the Democratic ideas are more related to reality," said Ammar Tuma, a lawmaker who serves in Maliki's ruling Shiite coalition. "They talk about the real problems that the Iraqis are facing every day."

To date, government officials said, they've also found Democratic visitors such as Pelosi, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois less parochial, more culturally sensitive and more willing to listen to Iraqi concerns than Republicans.

"Before, Bush used to order Iraqi officials to do this and that," said one member of Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The Republicans were dictating the political process in Iraq. With the Democrats in control of Congress, the Republicans are now less influential than before. It helps us in a sense to breathe a bit more and to have more freedom."

Many of the Shiites around Maliki still harbor bitterness about the Bush administration's push to remove then-interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari from his post last year. They considered the pressure inappropriate interference in Iraq's domestic affairs. They were also angered by recent remarks by Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice questioning whether Maliki was up to the job of leading Iraq.

The United Nations has called on the US, and its allies, to sound "a timeout" over the rising confrontation with Iran over its nuclear energy programs :

A key to resolving the issue is a direct engagement between Iran and the United States similar to that with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei stressed in several interviews over the weekend in Davos, Switzerland, where he attended the World Economic Forum.

“I call on all parties to take a simultaneous timeout. Iran should take a timeout from its enrichment activity, the international community a timeout from the application of sanctions, and parties should go immediately to the negotiating table,” he said. “The right track is dialogue, negotiation.”

The US has roundly rejected any and all calls for "a timeout".

But now Russia and China are backing up the United Nations, against the United States.

Everyone, it seems, now wants a "time out", except the United States, Israel, and more quietly, Australia.

But any idea that China or Russia would tolerate any kind of military action by the United States and/or Israel on Iran should be dismissed from the mind. They've made it clear. No-one strikes Iran, without serious consequences.


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Only The US War Hawks Can Save The Iranian President Now

Bush Faces His Burden Of Iraq War Lies, Distortions, As He Moves To Confront Iran

Israel Is The Real Winner Of America's War On Iraq, And Coming War On Iran

Iran's Supreme Leader Broadcasts Close Ties Of Iran And Russia As US War Looms

IRAN PRESIDENT RAILS AGAINST BUSHCO. AT UN

Time Mag Interview With Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad :

TIME: What were your impressions of New York during your visit to the U.S. last year?

Ahmadinejad: Unfortunately we didn't have any contact with the people of the United States. We were not in touch with the people. But my general impression is that the people of the United States are good people. Everywhere in the world, people are good.

TIME: Did you visit the site of the World Trade Center?

Ahmadinejad: It was not necessary. It was widely covered in the media.

TIME: You recently invited President Bush to a televised debate. If he were sitting where I am sitting, what would you say, man to man?

Ahmadinejad: The issues which are of interest to us are the international issues and how to manage them. I gave some recommendations to President Bush in my personal letter, and I hope that he will take note of them. I would ask him, Are rationalism, spirituality and humanitarianism and logic�are they bad things for human beings? Why more conflict? Why should we go for hostilities? Why should we develop weapons of mass destruction? Everybody can love one another.

TIME: Do you feel any connection with President Bush, since he is also a religious man, a strong Christian?

Ahmadinejad: I've heard about that. But there are many things which take place and are inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ in this world.

TIME: Why do your supporters chant "Death to America"?

Ahmadinejad: When they chanted that slogan, it means they hate aggression, and they hate bullying tactics, and they hate violations of the rights of nations and discrimination. I recommended to President Bush that he can change his behavior, then everything will change.

TIME: How do you think the American people feel when they hear Iranians shouting "Death to America" and the President of Iran does not criticize this?

Ahmadinejad: The nations do not have any problems. What is the role of the American people in what is happening in the world? The people of the United States are also seeking peace, love, friendship and justice.

TIME: But if Americans shouted "Death to Iran," Iranians would feel insulted.

Ahmadinejad: If the government of Iran acted in such a way, then [the American people] have this right.

TIME: Are America and Iran fated to be in conflict?

Ahmadinejad: No, this is not fate. And this can come to an end. I have said we can run the world through logic. We are living our own lives. The U.S. government should not interfere in our affairs. They should live their own lives. They should serve the interests of the U.S. people. They should not interfere in our affairs. Then there would be no problems with that.

TIME: Are you ready to open direct negotiations with the U.S.?

Ahmadinejad: We have given them a letter, a lengthy letter. We say the U.S. Administration should change its behavior, and then everything will be solved. It was the U.S. which broke up relations with us. We didn't take that position. And then they should make up for it.

TIME: Does Iran have the right to nuclear weapons?

Ahmadinejad: We are opposed to nuclear weapons. We think it has been developed just to kill human beings. It is not in the service of human beings. For that reason, last year in my address to the U.N. General Assembly, I suggested that a committee should be set up in order to disarm all the countries that possess nuclear weapons.

TIME: But you were attacked with weapons of mass destruction by Iraq. You say the u.s. threatens you, and you are surrounded by countries that have nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad: Today nuclear weapons are a blunt instrument. We don't have any problems with Pakistan or India. Actually they are friends of Iran, and throughout history they have been friends. The Zionist regime is not capable of using nuclear weapons. Problems cannot be solved through bombs. Bombs are of little use today. We need logic.

TIME: Why won't you agree to suspend enrichment of uranium as a confidence-building measure?

Ahmadinejad: Whose confidence should be built?

TIME: The world's?

Ahmadinejad: The world? The world? Who is the world? The United States? The U.S. Administration is not the entire world. Europe does not account for one-twentieth of the entire world. When I studied the provisions of the npt [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty], nowhere did I see it written that in order to produce nuclear fuel, we need to win the support or the confidence of the United States and some European countries.

TIME: How far will Iran go in defying Western demands? Will you wait until you are attacked and your nuclear installations are destroyed?

Ahmadinejad: Do you think the u.s. administration would be so irrational?

TIME: You tell me.

Ahmadinejad: I hope that is not the case. I said that we need logic. We do not need attacks.

TIME: Are you worried about an attack?

Ahmadinejad: No.

TIME: You have been quoted as saying Israel should be wiped off the map. Was that merely rhetoric, or do you mean it?

Ahmadinejad: People in the world are free to think the way they wish. We do not insist they should change their views. Our position toward the Palestinian question is clear: we say that a nation has been displaced from its own land. Palestinian people are killed in their own lands, by those who are not original inhabitants, and they have come from far areas of the world and have occupied those homes. Our suggestion is that the 5 million Palestinian refugees come back to their homes, and then the entire people on those lands hold a referendum and choose their own system of government. This is a democratic and popular way. Do you have any other suggestions?

TIME: Do you believe the Jewish people have a right to their own state?

Ahmadinejad: We do not oppose it. In any country in which the people are ready to vote for the Jews to come to power, it is up to them. In our country, the Jews are living and they are represented in our Parliament. But Zionists are different from Jews.

TIME: Have you considered that Iranian Jews are hurt by your comments denying that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust?

Ahmadinejad: As to the Holocaust, I just raised a few questions. And I didn't receive any answers to my questions. I said that during World War II, around 60 million were killed. All were human beings and had their own dignities. Why only 6 million? And if it had happened, then it is a historical event. Then why do they not allow independent research?

TIME: But massive research has been done.

Ahmadinejad: They put in prison those who try to do research. About historical events everybody should be free to conduct research. Let's assume that it has taken place. Where did it take place? So what is the fault of the Palestinian people? These questions are quite clear. We are waiting for answers.

From the UK Guardian :

The intensifying war of words between Iran and the United States reached the floor of the United Nations last night when the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused America and Britain of violating international law.

Mr Ahmadinejad's speech only once directly referred to the United States, but was infused throughout with criticism of the "exclusionist policies" of what he called the "hegemonic power" and its grip over the UN through its membership of the security council.

"The question needs to be asked: if the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom who are permanent members of the security council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the organs of the UN can take them to account?" he said.

Hours earlier, at the same lectern, President George Bush accused the Tehran regime of supporting terrorism. He told the Iranian people that the greatest obstacle to a free future came from their own rulers, who had "chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism, and fuel extremism, and pursue nuclear weapons".

Mr Bush has refused to meet the Iranian president this week. The criticism levelled at each other by the two leaders at the general assembly, separated by only seven hours, highlighted the increasingly tense stand-off between the two countries over Iran's nuclear weapons programme.

Mr Ahmadinejad made no reference to Iran's nuclear activities, instead reminding delegates that America had itself used the bomb.

He accused the US of using terrorism as a "pretext for the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq". He also criticised Washington's support for Israel, and accused the UN security council of sitting "idly by for many days" while atrocities were committed in Lebanon this summer.

In his 15-minute address, President Bush chose to speak over the heads of several world leaders seated before him in the general assembly chamber in New York and address their people directly. He challenged the delegations not just from Iran, but also Syria and Sudan.

He invoked the interests of "ordinary men and women free to determine their own destiny" and expressed his desire for a world in which "the extremists are marginalised by the peaceful majority".

Mr Bush's speech was the last in a series he has given around the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The addresses were conceived by the White House as an attempt to regain control of the political agenda and steer it away from the troubles in Iraq towards the need to stand firm in the so-called war on terror.

But Mr Bush spoke against a troubled backdrop. Earlier Kofi Annan, making his last speech to the general assembly as UN secretary general before he steps down at the end of this year, painted a grim picture, saying the past 10 years had "not resolved, but sharpened" the problems of an unjust global economy, disorder, and contempt for human rights. "We face a world whose divisions threaten the very notion of an international community upon which this institution stands," he said.

Mr Bush denied that his administration was anti-Muslim and dismissed criticism that US efforts to spread democracy in the region were backfiring. "The reality is that the stability we thought we saw in the Middle East was a mirage. For decades, millions of men and women in the region had been trapped in oppression and hopelessness. And these conditions left a generation disillusioned and made this region a breeding ground for extremism."

Addressing himself "to the people of Iran", he said he admired their rich history and vibrant culture, and said they deserved an opportunity to determine their own future.

Mr Ahmadinejad's aggressive speech adds further heat to the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme that is dominating discussions at the UN. The French president, Jacques Chirac, told the general assembly that "dialogue must prevail. Our goal is not to call regimes into question."

Mr Chirac met Mr Bush yesterday morning in a bridge-building meeting after cracks in their strategy towards Iran appeared to open up. On Monday Mr Chirac, speaking on French radio, took a notably softer stance on the need for Iran to suspend enrichment before talks could begin - a key demand of Washington. The US and British governments have so far been unbending on this condition.

Following their meeting, the US and French leaders insisted their position was united.

From the Washington Post :

Sept. 19 -- Before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, U.S. officials confidently predicted that the toppling of Saddam Hussein would lead to renewed momentum on the Israeli-Palestinian peace track. "The road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad" was a common refrain.

President Bush's speech Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly showed how much that diplomatic calculation has changed in Bush's second term. With the United States ensnarled in an increasingly difficult campaign in Iraq, war is no longer a viable option. Instead, the administration is struggling with the difficult and messy business of diplomacy. That often means accommodating the interests and demands of other countries, even backtracking on what had been firm positions.

Slowly but surely, the White House has muddied what were once clear lines in pursuit of diplomacy. As recently as a month ago, the administration firmly demanded that Iran must first suspend its nuclear activities before the United States would join negotiations on the nuclear programs, but now U.S. officials have quietly acquiesced in a European-led effort to find a face-saving way for the talks to begin.

U.S. officials are still pursuing the possibility of sanctions, and in fact they have drafted a sanctions resolution to be offered at the U.N. Security Council. But with allies balking, negotiations appear more likely than punishment. Bush, in his speech, used notably mild language when he discussed Iran, suggesting that the two countries one day will "be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted a dinner Tuesday night at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel with her counterparts from Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and Italy. Under the original schedule, the session was supposed to reach decisions on a sanctions resolution. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, briefing reporters Tuesday night, said the foreign ministers expressed "very strong support" for the European Union negotiations with Iran. "We are seeking a diplomatic solution," he said, saying the diplomacy is "in extra innings."

Bush, in his speech, also emphasized that U.S. officials "have no objection to Iran's pursuit of a truly peaceful nuclear power program." This is a reversal from the policy in the first term, when U.S. officials loudly proclaimed that a country with such vast oil and gas reserves had no need for a nuclear program. Under pressure from Europeans, the administration dropped that argument late last year.

On the Middle East, Bush pushed his notion that greater democracy will bring stability to the region. But many foreign officials instead argue that stability can be achieved only if there is peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

To that end, Bush appeared to announce a new initiative, saying he had "directed Secretary of State Rice to lead a diplomatic effort to engage moderate leaders across the region, to help the Palestinians reform their security services and support Israeli and Palestinian leaders in their efforts" to resolve differences.

But U.S. officials said Bush was not announcing something new, but rather highlighting an evolving effort to take advantage of the growing anger among Palestinians at the Hamas-led government. The militant group won legislative elections earlier this year, leading to a broad cutoff of international aid because Hamas refuses to renounce its stated goal of destroying Israel.

Rice might travel to the Middle East after the U.N. General Assembly meeting ends, though plans are not firm, officials said. To a large extent, the administration is reacting to pressure from Europeans and Arabs to do more on the Palestinian issue. British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently visited the Middle East and is trying to foster political reconciliation among various Palestinian factions, while French President Jacques Chirac on Tuesday called here for an international peace conference to "define in advance the guarantees we are prepared to provide to the parties as soon as they reach an agreement." Both Israeli and U.S. officials regard Chirac's idea as a nonstarter.

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