President Bush said Iran remains a threat because of its quest for nuclear weapons know-how.
“Iran was a threat, Iran is a threat and Iran will be threat if the international community does not come together and prevent that country from having the know-how for a secret weapon,” Bush said Wednesday at a news conference at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Jerusalem residence.
Bush sought to reassure Israelis that last month’s assessment by the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran had shut down a nuclear weapons program in 2003 did not diminish his determination to confront Iran on the issue.
“My attitude is that a non-transparent country, a country that has yet to expose what it was up to, can easily restart a program,” he said, noting that Iran was still enriching uranium and developing nuclear-capable missiles.
Bush stressed that his aim was to confront the issue through diplomacy.
