Nuclear plans: US repeats warning to Iran

BY OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
February 25, 2007

United States Vice-President Dick Cheney on Saturday renewed Washington’s warning to Iran that it will use “all options” if Iran continues to defy the United Nations-led efforts to get Tehran to abandon its nuclear programmes.

Dick Cheney, at a joint news conference with Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard, also said Washington was “comfortable” with Britain’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq and that it was up to Australia to decide if it would do the same.

Cheney said the United States remained “deeply concerned” about Iran’s activities, including the “aggressive” sponsoring of terrorist group Hezbollah and the inflammatory statements being made by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He said top officials of the United States would meet soon European allies to decide the next step toward planned tough sanctions against Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“We worked with the European community and the United Nations to put together a set of policies to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations and resolve the matter peacefully, and that is still our preference,” Cheney said.

“But I’ve also made the point, and the President has made the point, that all options are on the table,” he said. “We believe it would be a serious mistake if a nation such as Iran became a nuclear power.”

Iran says its atomic programme is aimed solely at generating energy, but the United States and some of its allies suspect it is geared toward making nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had reported on Thursday that Iran had not only ignored a UN Security Council ultimatum to freeze the enrichment programme but also expanded that programme by setting up hundreds of centrifuges.

Enriched uranium fuels nuclear reactors, but when enriched further, it is used in nuclear bombs.

The IAEA report came after the expiration Wednesday of a 60-day grace period for Iran to halt uranium enrichment.

Ahmadinejad had said on Thursday that Iran would resist “all bullies” and appeared to dismiss the IAEA report, saying it was of no importance if countries did not believe Iran’s nuclear activities were peaceful.

Prime Minister Howard said expressed Australia’s concern at the length of time it was taking to bring David Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 on the Taliban side, before a military trial.

Cheney said there had been legal setbacks to the military commission process, but that “Hicks is near the head of the queue.”