The NIE Bait-n-Switch: US Wants Iran to Admit to Nuke Program

[tekisui]

Iran must "confess" to running a past nuclear weapons program or its claims of cooperating with a U.N. investigation will not be credible, the chief U.S. envoy to the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Friday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, said in Washington that if Iran wants U.N. sanctions lifted and avoid new ones, it must halt uranium enrichment and related activities that could make the ingredients for an atomic bomb.

If Iran complies, Rice said she was "prepared to meet my (Iranian) counterpart any place and anytime and anywhere, and we can talk about anything." But "as long as the Iranians are talking and practicing enrichment, we're not getting anywhere," she said.

Iran says it needs an enrichment program to produce fuel for civilian power plants, but Washington suspects it is part of its ultimate drive to possess nuclear weapons. Low enriched uranium generates power, but highly enriched, it has no use other than for the fissile payload of nuclear warheads.

Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment "violates Security Council resolutions and casts doubt on its leaders' ultimate intent."

"Iran is already a danger in the Middle East," Schulte said. "That danger only increases as Iran's leaders shorten the timeline to produce nuclear weapons."

The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear programs since revelations in 2003 that the country had conducted nearly two decades of secret atomic activities, including developing enrichment and working on experiments that could be linked to a weapons program.

more at link: http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/US_wants_Iran_to_admit_to_nuke_prog_12212007.html

[LakeSamish706]

1. And if I were Iran I would tell the US to go screw themselves! n/t

[MuseRider]

3. I would too.

PROVE to us you don't have what you say you don't have and the IAEA does not count. Sound familiar? It should.

[zabet]

2. Like anything our

government says is 'credible'.
:eyes:

[HuffleClaw]

4. you'd think after making themselves the world's laughingstock they'd give up

but nooooo. rice and friends have no intentions of talking with iran, it would interfere with their war plans.