DEBKAfile Reports: Bush administration washes its hands of confrontation with Tehran over its nuclear weapons program. Israel is left to face the threat alone.
In a radical about-face, the White House suddenly “discovered” Monday, Dec. 3, that Iran had halted it nuclear weapons program four years ago, but has continued to enrich uranium and could have enough material to build a bomb between 2010 and 2015. This discovery appeared in the latest National Intelligence Estimate with the comment that Iran seems less determined to develop nuclear arms than previous believed and more vulnerable to international pressure.
Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley said: “The estimate offers ground for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically without the use of force, as the administration has being trying to do.”
DEBKAfile’s sources in Israel: In effect Washington has taken the military option off the table at the very moment that Tehran’s Said Jalili slammed the door on diplomacy in a “disastrous” conversation with the EU’s Javier Solana.
