U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday called on greater cooperation from Iran to answer why the country had a secret nuclear program. Bush's comments came after a meeting with visiting Italian President Giorgio Napolitano at the White House. Bush's push to pressure Iran also comes after last week's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report that said Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but, also warned that Tehran is still enriching uranium and could develop a bomb between 2010 and 2015. Iran maintains that the development is for nuclear technology intended for civilian use. Despite the NIE's findings that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program, Bush continued to employ increased rhetoric towards Tehran in hopes of gaining enough international pressure to push nuclear transparency with the country. Bush reiterated that Iran must comply with standards posed by the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “We [the United States] believe Iran had a secret military weapons program, and Iran must explain to the world why they had a program…Iran has an obligation to explain to the IAEA why they hid this [nuclear] program from them,” Bush said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reacted positively to the NIE report saying that “we [Iran] consider this measure by the U.S. government a positive step. It is a step forward…The agency report and the NIE are before the eyes of the international public opinion. There is no reason for the continuation of enmities and hostilities [from the United States to Iran]. The threats failed, they were not effective,” he said in Tehran on Tuesday. After the White House meeting, Napolitano also said that he and Bush “share the concerns, and we express a common commitment” on a variety of issues, with the inclusion of Iranian nuclear arms. “We [the United States and Italy] just want to give our contributions and our ideas on how to face, successfully, all threats, including the very serious threat of nuclear weaponization of Iran,” Napolitano said. On Tuesday, diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany discussed a draft plan for new United Nations sanctions against Iran. If passed by the Security Council, the plan would enforce a third round of sanctions on Iran for defying international demands that it halt its enrichment of uranium.
