Iran's President lashes out at Bush
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-01 19:54

In a speech to thousands of supporters Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at the United States and vowed to resist the pressures of "bully countries" to constrain Tehran's nuclear program, a day before the U.N. nuclear agency is likely to vote to haul the country before the Security Council.

Speaking hours after President Bush's State of the Union address, the Iranian leader derided the United States as a "hollow superpower" that is "tainted with the blood of nations" and said Tehran would continue its nuclear program.

"Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully realized," Ahmadinejad told the crowd in the southern Iran city of Bushehr, the site of Iran's only nuclear power plant.

"Our nation can't give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the whole world and see themselves equal to the entire globe," he added.

The crowd responded with chants of "Nuclear energy is our right!"

Referring to Bush directly and the U.S.-led Iraq war, Ahmadinejad said: "Those whose hands are tainted with blood of nations and are involved in wars and oppression in any part of the world ... we, hopefully, in the near future will put you on trial in courts that will be set up by nations."

Iran's defense minister also warned all countries Wednesday against considering an attack on Iran's nuclear installations. "Any attack against Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities will meet a swift and crushing response from the armed forces," Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The comments came after Bush increased the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, saying in his address Tuesday night that "the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons." He said the United States "will continue to rally the world to confront these threats."

The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors is to meet in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday, and is expected to report Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. The five permanent members of the Security Council agreed Tuesday that Iran should be hauled before the powerful body.

The top U.N body has the power to impose economic and political sanctions, but none of those measures is immediately likely. Under the deal agreed to by Moscow and Beijing — previous opponents of referral — the Security Council will likely await a new IAEA report at the next board meeting in March before deciding on substantive action, leaving more time for talks with Iran.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the permanent members' decision to recommend that Iran's nuclear file go to the Security Council violated the Nuclear Nonprolifeation Treaty.

Two mass circulation newspapers, Kayhan and Jomhuri-e-Eslami, urged the government Wednesday to withdraw from the treaty if Iran is referred to the council.

"Iran's withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would be a protest against America and its allies' blackmail," wrote Hossein Shariatmadari in an editorial in the hard-line Kayhan. Shariatmadari is an influential conservative who is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran insists its nuclear program is civilian only and has no other purpose than to generate power. Enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed to build a warhead.

On Tuesday, the IAEA said in a report that Iran obtained documents and drawings on the black market that serve no other purpose than to make an atomic warhead. The report also confirmed information recently provided by diplomats familiar with the Iran probe that Tehran has not started small-scale uranium enrichment since announcing it would earlier this month.

The findings about the design obtained by Iran on the black market were contained in a confidential report for presentation to the IAEA board and provided in full to The Associated Press.

A three-year IAEA probe has not found firm evidence to back assertions by the United States and others that Iran's nuclear activities are a cover for an arms program but has not been able to dismiss such suspicions either.

First mention of the documents linked to constructing a nuclear warhead was made late last year in a longer IAEA report. At that time, the agency said only that they showed how to cast "enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms."

In the brief report obtained Tuesday, however, the agency said bluntly that the 15 pages of text and drawings showing how to cast fissile uranium into metal were "related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components."

The report said the documents were under agency seal, meaning that IAEA experts should be able to re-examine them, but "Iran has declined a request to provide the agency with a copy."

The documents in question were given to Iran by members of the nuclear black market network, the IAEA said. Iran has claimed it did not ask for the documents but received them anyway as part of other black market purchases.