Quote of note:
Mr. Bush has said publicly that he believes that Iran is attempting to build nuclear weapons; Mr. ElBaradei says he does not yet have evidence of a weapons program.
You know, people…in evaluating this stuff you need to keep in mind whose judgement has a historical record of accuracy. ElBaradei is a honest, reasonable man. He didn't play chickenshit hem-and-haw politics with his reporting on Iraq like Blix did.
U.S. Said to Seek Iran's Nuclear Details by June
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, March 17 — The head of the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, said Wednesday that President Bush and his aides had told him they regarded June as "an important deadline" for Iran to reveal all the details of its clandestine nuclear program. But he said Mr. Bush had left unclear what action he might take if Iran failed to do so.
After a 45-minute meeting with Mr. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, Mr. ElBaradei also said he sensed that the administration was "still mulling" some kind of direct dialogue with Tehran on its nuclear program and other issues.
In an interview after the meeting, Mr. ElBaradei said the subject of Iraq's weapons programs — so contentious a year ago — never even came up Wednesday in the Oval Office.
Instead, the discussion, which Mr. ElBaradei said had covered Pakistan and North Korea as well as Iran, centered on their somewhat different proposals for controlling the world's supply of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and keeping it out of the hands of both terror groups and rogue nations.
Mr. ElBaradei said he pressed Mr. Bush to help him get his inspectors into Pakistan to take samples of its nuclear material, which he needs to match up with traces of nuclear material found in Iran. It is a network created by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb, that is suspected of supplying Iran with the materials and technology to make atomic weapons.
Mr. Bush has said publicly that he believes that Iran is attempting to build nuclear weapons; Mr. ElBaradei says he does not yet have evidence of a weapons program.
Iran's account of its nuclear activity has constantly changed. Last year it admitted that it had hidden 18 years of nuclear development programs. It conceded this year that it had experimented with an advanced type of centrifuge apparently supplied by Mr. Khan's network.
Senior American officials have said they will decide in June whether to seek sanctions against Iran in the Security Council.
Posted by P6 at March 18, 2004 06:52 AM
Trackback URL: http://www.niggerati.net/mt/mt-tb.cgi/900
Comments