Bush: Iran Intends to Nuke Israel

Newsmax | January 16 2006

In his sharpest comments to date on the Iranian nuclear crisis, President Bush warned Friday t hat Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons and intends to use them to destroy Israel.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Washington, D.C. with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bush warned:

"I want to remind you that the current president of Iran has announced that the destruction of Israel is an important part of their agenda. And that's unacceptable. And the development of a nuclear weapon, it seems like to me, would make them a step closer to achieving that objective."

The president said that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose a threat, not just to the Jewish state, but to the world.

"Iran armed with a nuclear weapon poses a great threat to the security of the world. Countries such as ours have a great obligation to step up, working together to send a message to the Iranians that their behavior, trying to clandestinely develop a nuclear weapon, or using the guise of a civilian nuclear program to attain a nuclear weapon, is unacceptable."

For her part Chancellor Merkel added, "To Germany, it is totally unacceptable, what Iran said recently, especially regarding Israel and the Holocaust."

Last month, Iranian president Mamoud Ahmadinejad said that historical coverage of the Holocaust had been "exaggerated." In October he urged that Israel be "wiped off the map."