Feed: CNN.com
Posted on: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 4:57 PM
Author: CNN.com
Subject: Iran slams nuclear agency report
Iran hardly needs a nuclear bomb to stand up to the United States, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, ahead of a critical International Atomic Energy Agency report that is expected to say his country has mastered nuclear weapons capabilities. |
Iran slams expected nuclear agency report
- An IAEA report is expected to say Iran has mastered weapons capabilities
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Iran doesn't need a bomb to stand its ground
- Israeli defense minister warns all options are on the table to confront Iran
- U.S. officials say the White House will use the report to lobby for more sanctions
Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday slammed a critical new report expected this week from the International Atomic Energy Agency as a fabrication of facts aimed at satisfying U.S. allegations about the Islamic republic's nuclear ambitions.
The report by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog is expected to say Iran has mastered nuclear weapons capabilities, according to Western diplomats who were briefed on the report.
Ahmadinejad essentially called Yukiya Amano, the director general of the IAEA, a U.S. puppet and said the United Nations agency has no jurisdiction in Iran.
"They have appointed a man as the chief of the IAEA who has no authority," Ahmadinejad said on state-run Press TV.
"The Americans have fabricated a stack of papers and he keeps speaking about them," he said. "Why don't you do a report on the U.S. nuclear program and its allies? Present a report on the thousands of U.S. military bases where Washington has nuclear arms that threaten global security."
The IAEA report says there is no evidence that Iran has made a strategic decision to actually build a bomb, but its nuclear program is more ambitious and structured, and more progress has been made than previously known, the diplomats said.
Press TV said, however, that Amano had no new information and released old data.
Ahmadinejad said Washington and its allies measure their progress and development in the destruction of other countries' infrastructure. He warned that Washington would face a "crushing response" if it stood up against the Iranian people, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Tuesday.
He said Iran hardly needed a nuclear bomb to stand up to the United States and that Iran can achieve its objectives "through cultural and logical methodology," IRNA reported.
Word of the report drew strong comments in Israel, where talks of how to deal with Iran have recently hit fever pitch. Israel considers Iran its arch-nemesis for the Islamic republic's repeated innuendos about the destruction of the Jewish state.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that his nation would consider every option in countering Iran's bomb-making capabilities.
"Israel does not want a confrontation, but if it happens, the state of Israel will not be destroyed and there will not be 10,000 dead and not even 500 dead in any possible scenario," Barak said Tuesday on Israel Radio.
Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said Iranian armed forces were in "full combat readiness and will give a crushing response to those daring to attack the country," IRNA said.
The United States, Vahidi said, was trying to "promote Iranophobia" in a bid to attain its "sinister goals." The IAEA report, expected out this week, will contain the most detailed charges to date that Iran's nuclear program is geared toward weapons development and military use, the diplomats told CNN.
Iran has repeatedly insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian energy purposes only.
According to the IAEA report, Iran is believed to have continued weapons research and technology development after 2003, when the intelligence community thought Iran had stopped, the diplomats said. Instead of halting, it seems Iran took a temporary hiatus at the time, although the program progressed at a more modest pace since then, the diplomats said.
Previous IAEA reports have cited concerns by the organization that Iran has been seeking to develop nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles to deliver them.
The United States and other Western powers have long suspected that Iran's nuclear program is geared toward weapons development.
The United States is looking to increase the heat on Iran, including a possible strengthening of existing sanctions on Iran's financial and banking sectors and additional political pressure -- all of which could be applied by the United States alone or in coordination with other allies.
The United States also hopes international organizations, such as the United Nations, will take steps to further isolate Iran diplomatically.
Officials said that one of several options being considered is sanctioning the Central Bank of Iran, although the United States is mindful of the impact such a move could have on oil prices during a time of global economic turmoil.
U.S. officials said President Barack Obama's administration will use the report to lobby the international community to slap new economic sanctions against Iran.
Obama said he discussed the upcoming report with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Cannes, France, during a meeting of the G-20 industrialized nations. The U.S. president said the two leaders "agreed on the need to maintain the unprecedented international pressure on Iran to meet its obligations."
CNN's Elise Labott contributed to this report.
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