13 December 2007
Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has said that a US intelligence report would not undermine international pressure on Iran to curb its uranium enrichment. Olmert told an international conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that this month's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which said Iran shelved its nuclear weapons project in 2003, "generated an exaggerated debate" world-wide. "Some of us even interpreted the report as an American retreat from its support of Israel. This is groundless," the Israeli leader pointed out.
"The United States led the global campaign against Iran and mobilized its full international strength to set in motion the adoption by the UN Security Council of two resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, since America was convinced that Iran constitutes a real threat to peace in the region and to vital American interests," he noted. "This has not changed. Not because I say so: The Americans say so, and the British, the Germans and the French say so as well." Olmert reasserted Israel's belief that Iranian uranium enrichment plants could produce enough fissile material for a bomb by 2010. The intelligence report said the process would likely take several more years.
