|
US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran
· Bolton says nuclear plant can be 'taken out'
· UN agency meets to send report to security council
By Julian Borger Washington
03/06/06 "The
Guardian" -- -- The US ambassador to the United
Nations, John Bolton, has told British MPs that military action
could bring Iran's nuclear programme to a halt if all diplomatic
efforts fail. The warning came ahead of a meeting today of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will forward a
report on Iran's nuclear activities to the UN security council.
The council will have to decide whether to impose sanctions, an
issue that could split the international community as policy towards
Iraq did before the invasion.
Yesterday the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said: "Nobody
has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some
kind."
However the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, visiting
Washington last week, encountered sharply different views within the
Bush administration. The most hawkish came from Mr Bolton. According
to Eric Illsley, a Labour committee member, the envoy told the MPs:
"They must know everything is on the table and they must understand
what that means. We can hit different points along the line. You
only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take
the whole thing down."
It is unusual for an administration official to go into detail about
possible military action against Iran. To produce significant
amounts of enriched uranium, Iran would have to set up a
self-sustaining cycle of processes. Mr Bolton appeared to be
suggesting that cycle could be hit at its most vulnerable point.
The CIA appears to be the most sceptical about a military solution
and shares the state department's position, say British MPs, in
suggesting gradually stepping up pressure on the Iranians.
The Pentagon position was described, by the committee chairman, Mike
Gapes, as throwing a demand for a militarily enforced embargo into
the security council "like a hand grenade - and see what happens".
Yesterday Mr Bolton reiterated his hardline stance. In a speech to
the annual convention of the American-Israel public affairs
committee, the leading pro-Israel US lobbyists, he said: "The longer
we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more
intractable it will become to solve ... we must be prepared to rely
on comprehensive solutions and use all the tools at our disposal to
stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses."
The IAEA referred Iran to the security council on February 4, but a
month's grace was left for diplomatic initiatives. By yesterday,
those appeared exhausted. A meeting of European and Iranian
negotiators broke down on Friday over Tehran's insistence that even
if Russia was allowed to enrich Iran's uranium, Iran would enrich
small amounts for research. Iran says that it needs enrichment for
electricity.
According to Time magazine, the US plans to present the security
council with evidence that Iran is designing a crude nuclear bomb,
like the one dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. The evidence will be in
the form of blueprints that the US said were found on a laptop
belonging to an Iranian nuclear engineer, and obtained by the CIA in
2004. However, any such presentation will bring back memories of a
similar briefing in February 2003 in which Colin Powell, then US
secretary of state, laid out evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, which proved not to exist.
While the US and Britain keep a united front over Iraq in the UN
security council, there are clear differences over Iran. Britain has
ruled out a military option if diplomatic pressure fails. The US has
not. There is no serious consideration of large-scale use of ground
forces, but there are disagreements in the administration over
whether air strikes and small-scale special forces operations could
be effective in halting or slowing down Iran's alleged nuclear
weapons programme.
Some believe Iran has secret facilities that are buried so deep
underground as to be impenetrable. They argue that the US could
never be certain whether or not it had destroyed Iran's
"capability".
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
Click below to post a comment on this article
(In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the
originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) |
