Seattle Times : Bush calls Iran a threat after snub of N-deadline

Bush calls Iran a threat after snub of N-deadline

By Dafna Linzer | Washington Post | September 1, 2006

WASHINGTON — A defiant Iran faced the prospect of economic sanctions after U.N. inspectors reported the country had ignored Thursday's deadline to halt its nuclear program and was hindering efforts to determine whether it sought to secretly develop nuclear weapons.

President Bush called Iran a "grave threat" and said "there must be consequences" for Tehran's actions. "It is time for Iran to make a choice," Bush said in a speech to the American Legion's national convention in Salt Lake City.

His administration had offered to join talks with Iran and held out the possibility of future cooperation after 27 years enmity, if Tehran met the U.N. deadline for suspending its nuclear program. Thursday, however, U.S. officials said they will demand international sanctions against the Iranian government.

"We are going to move this toward a sanctions resolution at the United Nations," said R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs.

Sanctions uncertain

It is unclear how much support the White House has for the tough measures it hopes will force Iran to abandon a nuclear effort that has become a source of national pride. No world leader who commented on Thursday's events spoke in the stark terms that Bush used, and none of the president's closest allies said sanctions were a certainty.

European officials expressed dismay with Iran but emphasized a commitment to negotiations; they scheduled a meeting next week with Ali Larijani, the Iranian government's point man on nuclear issues. European diplomats will meet with Burns the next day in Berlin.

Since his 2002 State of the Union speech, when Bush singled out Iran as part of an "axis of evil," he has tried without success to roll back Tehran's nuclear energy program. He has asserted, without offering proof, that it is a cover for weapons development.

Iran has insisted that the nuclear program, which it kept hidden for 18 years, is for the production of energy, which it has a right to develop.

"The Iranian nation will not accept for one moment any bullying, invasion and violation of its rights," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. He called the United States government "tyrannical." His foreign minister said Iran's program is peaceful and will continue.

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In Thursday's report, nuclear inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) detailed circumstantial evidence that suggests Iran is still concealing aspects of is nuclear program.

Lack of cooperation

In just six pages, the inspectors complained 18 times about Iran's lack of cooperation, including refusing to hand over crucial documents, denying access to facilities, and a new policy of rejecting certain entry visas for some inspectors. As a result, inspectors said, they could not confirm "the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."

But IAEA officials noted that they have not found proof of a weapons program and said Iran is still complying with basic, mandatory inspections that allow the agency to monitor all of its work with uranium. That access enabled the IAEA to report that Iran had "not suspended its enrichment related activities," as the Security Council required it to do by Thursday.

Inspectors reported that since April, when Iran began enriching uranium in a string of centrifuges, it has produced about six kilograms of uranium to levels consistent with an energy program.

The material cannot be used for a weapon. Iran began enriching another small quantity last week, but inspectors wrote that there have been more substantial pauses than progress. They noted that the Iranians are working at a much slower pace than the IAEA, outside nuclear experts and some foreign intelligence agencies had forecast.

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