Bush Woos Ghana against Iran

Over American fears of Tehran’s “WMD’

AS TEHRAN CONTINUES to resist UN/US intensive pressure to stop its nuclear programmes, Washington has intensified its efforts at encouraging the international community to join it to halt Tehran from pursuing its nuclear activities, which the Bush administration claims is a major threat to the globe.

Even though Tehran has come out to declare that its nuclear programmes are for “peaceful” purposes, the US continues to insist that the Islamic republic is seeking to build nuclear weapons and have demanded it suspend its uranium enrichment activities.

Last week, the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations Office in Vienna, Ambassador Gregory Schulte, on the orders of President Bush visited Accra as part of his global campaign, to meet with government officials on how to deal with Tehran and its possible threat to the world.

At a roundtable discussion with Ghanaian journalists at the new US Multi Purpose Room Embassy complex in Accra, Ambassador Schulte expressed US’ major fears about Tehran’s nuclear programmes, claiming that series of reports emanating from a number of critical studies suggests Iran has ulterior motives concerning its uranium enrichment activities.

He said the United States has evidence that Iran has secretly been building large nuclear facilities at sites that could possibly be used to make nuclear weapons.

He indicated the sites as near the town of Natanz and another one near Arak, all in Iran.

Asked by the GYE NYAME CONCORD as to what exactly makes the US believe that Iran has intentions of acquiring nuclear weapons, Ambassador Schulte said Tehran has rejected modern technologies from Russia as well as the West for an out-of-date AQ Khan technology, which meant that something might be fishy.

Ambassador Schulte also claims Tehran has been supporting terrorism in the Middle East and revealed that there is a link between the Iranian army and its nuclear programme, which according to him, makes the US’ fears real.

Even though he could not tell whether Tehran possesses nuclear weapons at the moment, he said Washington estimates that Iran could possess nuclear power between 2010 and 2015. As a result, Ambassador Schulte expressed the urgent need for the international community to act swiftly in unison to halt what he termed the looming danger posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

He also indicated that Iran had admitted working on long-range missiles after its Shahab-3 and 4 missiles with a range of 2000 km and wondered who Tehran could possibly be targeting.

He noted that the threat posed by Iran’s current nuclear intentions was indeed global, stressing that in view of the volatile and the sensitive situation prevailing in the Middle-East, there was cause for concern about Iran’s possible nuclear capabilities.

However, Ambassador Schulte insist Washington believe diplomacy is the best option to deal with Tehran to ensure that the Islamic Republic back down on its nuclear mission or possibly co-operate with the West on the best way forward for Iran’s nuclear programmes other than the uranium enrichment activities.

According to him, Washington is looking at a third sanction to be imposed on the Islamic republic by the UN Security Council but insisted that such sanctions should not be targeted at the ordinary Iranian people but targeted at the government and its agencies and personalities in order to make it difficult for them to pursue their ‘evil’ agenda of acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Iran has always claimed that the purpose of its nuclear programme is the generation of power and that any other use would be a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory. Such a programme would also be against Iranian religious principles, it says.

According to Iran, nuclear power is necessary for its booming population and rapidly-industrialising nation.

Presently, Iran is not known to possess weapons of mass destruction and has signed treaties repudiating possession of them, including the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

However, Iran is believed to have a current inventory of 25 to 100 Shahab-3 missiles which have a range of 2100 km and are capable of being armed with conventional high explosives, submunition, chemical, biological, radiological dispersion and potentially nuclear warheads.

A Shahab-4 with a range of 2000 km and a payload of 1000 kg is believed to be under development.

Iran has also stated the Shahab-3 is the last of its war missiles and the Shahab-4 is being developed to give the country the capability of launching communications and surveillance satellites.

A Shahab-5, an intercontinental ballistic missile with a 10,000km range, is also believed to be under development.

But a number of western countries, including the U.S., United Kingdom, and France, have accused Iran of a clandestine intentions behind its nuclear programme.

On 31 July 2006, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution demanding Iran suspends its nuclear activities.

On December 23, 2006, the UN Security Council approved imposing sanctions against Iran, UNSC Resolutions 1737 and 1747.

Meanwhile, in his “OUR HIDDEN WMD PROGRAM-Why Bush is spending so much on nuclear weapons” in April 23, 2004, Fred Kaplan wrote, “The budget is busted; American soldiers need more armour; they’re running out of supplies.

Yet the Department of Energy is spending an astonishing $6.5 billion on nuclear weapons this year, and President Bush is requesting $6.8 billion more for next year and a total of $30 billion over the following four years.

This does not include his much-cherished missile-defence programme, by the way. This is simply for the maintenance, modernization, development, and production of nuclear bombs and warheads”