The Bush administration denied an Israeli media report that it plans to attack Iran before its term ends.
“An article in today’s Jerusalem Post about the president’s position on Iran that quotes unnamed sources – quoting unnamed sources – is not worth the paper it’s written on,” said the statement Tuesday by Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.
The Jerusalem Post article picks up a story from Army Radio that quotes a senior Israeli source who in turn quotes a senior Bush administration official as saying in a meeting last week during President Bush’s visit to Israel that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney favor attacking Iran, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are hesitant.
“Let me respond by reaffirming the policy of the Administration: We, along with our international allies who want peace in the Middle East, remain opposed to Iran’s ambitions to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Perino’s statement said. “To that end, we are working to bring tough diplomatic and economic pressure on the Iranians to get them to change their behavior and to halt their uranium enrichment program. As the President has said, no president of the United States should ever take options off the table, but our preference and our actions for dealing with this matter remain through peaceful diplomatic means. Nothing has changed in that regard.”
