This is a good attempt to change the subject away from stopping the growth of the settlements. as if our own satelites didn't know about this already.
Sharon warns US of Iran's nuclear threat
By HERB KEINON
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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush tour Bush's Crawford, Texas farm
Photo: AP
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WASHINGTON
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams for the second time in two days Tuesday, with the focus this time on the entire Middle East, not the Palestinians.
Officials in Sharon's entourage said Tuesday's talks dealt with the whole range of regional issues, with particular attention paid to Iran's nuclear threat, and possible responses if Teheran continues its march toward nuclear arms capabilities.
Senior Israeli officials said Tuesday that the decision on when to bring the Iranian issue to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions should not be dragged out indefinitely. The important time issue to keep in mind, they said, was not the date when Iran would acquire a nuclear bomb, but rather when it would pass the "threshold of no return" and develop the technology that would allow it – in the future – to build such a weapon.
Sharon told US President George W. Bush on Monday that Iran was only one technological step away from enriching uranium and, from that point, achieving nuclear capability was just around the corner, Channel 2 reported.
Sharon's military secretary, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, presented to Bush updated documents and satellite images of Iran's nuclear program. According to Israel Radio, the images showed that the Iranian nuclear program was at a "very advanced" stage.
Israeli officials called on the US urgently to present the issue before the Security Council, which would enable the imposing of sanctions on Teheran.
Sharon met Cheney and Abrams for lunch at the Blair House, where the prime minister is staying. These talks also dealt with other regional issues, according to Israeli officials, such as the situations in Lebanon and Syria. Both Cheney and Abrams took part in Sharon's talks Monday with Bush at his Crawford ranch.
On Tuesday evening, Sharon was slated to meet a group of some 26 Jewish senators and congressmen (13 of the country's 100 senators are Jewish), followed by a meeting with outgoing Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz, who is slated to become the next head of the World Bank, followed by a dinner with House and Senate leaders from both parties.
Sharon is scheduled to leave Washington Wednesday afternoon and arrive back in Israel on Thursday.
In Israel, Likud rebel leader Uzi Landau called Sharon's trip to Washington "a big failure." He said that Sharon lost his credibility because he failed to obtain American support to expand large settlement blocs.
"If the trip was intended to bring achievements, it was a waste of time," Landau said. "Sharon didn't need to go to Texas to raise the disputes we knew about before and to get nothing in return except for the same ambiguous statements he received from Bush last year. Now the Americans not only don't support building in settlements, they won't even allow natural growth in Ma'aleh Adumim."
Landau also criticized Sharon for telling NBC that the tense atmosphere in Israel could lead to civil war. Landau said that "it is improper to attack the people of Israel in a foreign land, and it is even worse for a prime minister to use the foreign press to attack his political rivals."
Gil Hoffman contributed to this report. |
