Powell: Iran is far from building nukes

Hm. The evidence suggests that Iran is at the brink of industrial scale nuclear production. But former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iran is far from producing a nuclear weapon during a speech in Kuwait Sunday.

Iran is far from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and despite U.S. fears about its atomic intentions, an American military strike against the Islamic Republic is unlikely, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday.

Tehran rejects claims by the United States and some European Union countries that its nuclear program is aimed at secretly producing weapons, insisting it is for peaceful purposes only.

“I think Iran is a long way from having anything that could be anything like a nuclear weapon,” said Powell, who was invited by the National Bank of Kuwait to speak on economic opportunity and crisis in the Middle East.

A US strike on Iran probably is unlikely, but is it useful for Powell to tell them that? Is Powell’s comment evidence that what John Bolton calls the “George C. Marshall legacy project” is still under construction?

Bolton attributes Powell’s 2004 gambit on Iran to what he caustically calls the “George C. Marshall Legacy Project,” which he said involved “distancing Powell from Bush.” Bolton, as the administration’s chief arms control official, was critical of efforts by Britain, France and Germany (the “EU-3″) to forge a deal with Iran.

He believed that Tehran used the talks only to build up its nuclear capability. The administration was also openly skeptical, so he says he was shocked to learn that Powell, at a Sept. 22, 2004, dinner with “Group of Eight” foreign ministers, agreed that Iran should be given a package of “carrots.”

Bolton says he got a vague response from Powell when he asked about it, but he soon saw a European reporting cable on the meal and a Canadian letter that confirmed Powell’s proposal. In what Bolton described as the most difficult three weeks of his tenure in the administration, he says he used every possible bureaucratic and diplomatic maneuver to kill Powell’s plan.

“Powell had violated our long-standing Iran policy, colluded with the EU-3 against it and come out nearly endorsing [Sen. John F.] Kerry’s position only weeks before our election,” Bolton writes. “Along with others, I had foiled Powell’s legacy gambit. I knew it, and he knew I knew it.”

It would be nice to know what Powell is basing his “nothing to see here” comments on. It could be the IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei. He is due to report on Iran’s nuclear progress on Nov 22. Perhaps Powell was given a sneak peak at ElBaradei’s upcoming report.

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