Texas governor cautions against Ahmadinejad’s N-ambitions (20/3/2007)

Texas governor cautions against Ahmadinejad’s N-ambitions
By Bonnie JamesTEXAS Governor Rick Perry has warned that countries in the Middle East are taking a big chance if they believe Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a threat.
Perry, who succeeded George W Bush in December 2000, was in Doha to attend the opening celebration of Texas A&M University at Qatar’s new building in Education City.
He told Gulf Times in an exclusive interview: “I think countries in the region have to put pressure (on Iran) and have some type of agreement when you have a leader who is fomenting some of the very radical positions and threatening to destroy a country.”
Perry, elected to two full terms in 2002 and 2006, cited the possibility that “if allowed to go forward, Ahmadinejad could stack up a number of nuclear weapons attached to ballistic missiles that reach any country in the region”.
“All freedom loving people should be concerned about a country that has a leader who first and foremost wants to have nuclear capacity and use that to destroy a country,” he cautioned.
Asked what makes the US and its allies think that Iran would misuse nuclear capability when none of the countries in the nuclear club have done so, Perry maintained it is because Ahmadinejad said so.
“He said he would destroy a country (Israel) in the Middle East and I don’t know what more you need. I don’t want to see the evidence in the mushroom cloud some day,” the official stated.
Perry was of the view that ‘all diplomatic tools’ ought to be used to resolve the Iranian nuclear imbroglio. Ahmadinejad has refused to stop sensitive nuclear work (uranium enrichment).
Iran’s government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham said on Saturday that Ahmadinejad would travel to New York once a scheduled UN Security Council meeting over Tehran’s nuclear issue is confirmed.
The president is to deliver a speech defending Iran’s nuclear programme before the Council votes on a resolution against his country. Iran has all the while been claiming that its nuclear agenda is a peaceful one.
The five permanent members of the Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - and Germany agreed Thursday on the draft resolution before forwarding it to the 10 non-permanent members of the group for further review.
The proposed new sanctions would ban Iranian arms exports and place sanctions on financial assistance or loans to the Iranian government.
The package would also freeze the assets of 28 named individuals and organisations involved in the country’s nuclear and missile programmes, and call for voluntary travel restrictions on individuals connected to Iran’s nuclear activities.
“We certainly have great concerns about whether the president of Iran is a person who can be trusted with his word or not,” Perry added.