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Chirac muses on Iran, and then retreats
If Iran were to try to use a nuclear weapon against Israel, "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground."
By Elaine Sciolino and Katrin Bennhold
Published: January 31, 2007
PARIS: President Jacques Chirac said in an interview that an Iran that possessed one or two nuclear weapons would not pose much of a danger, adding that if Iran were ever to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran.
The remarks, made in an interview Monday with the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times and the weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, were vastly different from stated French policy and from what Chirac repeatedly has said.
So in a remarkable turnaround, Chirac summoned the journalists involved to the Élysée Palace again Tuesday to retract many of the things he had said.
Chirac said repeatedly during the second interview that he had spoken casually and quickly the day before because he had believed he was talking about Iran off the record. Finally, he admitted that he had made a mistake.
"It is I who was wrong and I do not want to contest it," he said. "I should have paid better attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record."
The interview was conducted under an agreement that it would not be published until Thursday, when Nouvel Observateur prints.
On Monday, Chirac began by describing as "very dangerous" Iran's refusal to stop producing enriched uranium, which can be used to produce electricity or to make nuclear weapons.
Then he made his remarks about a nuclear-armed Iran.
"I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb," he said. "Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous. But what is very dangerous is proliferation. This means that if Iran continues in the direction it has taken and totally mastering nuclear-generated electricity, the danger does not lie in the bomb it will have, and which will be of no use to it."
Chirac explained that it would be an act of self-destruction for Iran to use a nuclear weapon against another country. "Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" Chirac asked. "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground."
It was unclear whether Chirac's initial remarks reflected what he truly believed about Iran or whether he had misspoken. In the past year and a half, he is said by some French officials to have become much less precise in diplomatic conversations and to have even expressed the view that a nuclear- armed Iran might be inevitable.
Further confusing the issue, on Monday evening, the Élysée prepared a heavily edited 19-page transcript of the interview that did not include Chirac's assessment of a nuclear-armed Iran or his prediction of what would happen if it ever tried to use it.
Instead, the transcript added a line that Chirac had not said; it read, "I do not see what type of scenario could justify Iran's recourse to an atomic bomb."
The attempt by the Élysée to change the president's remarks in a formal text is not unusual. It is a long-held tradition in French journalism for interview subjects, from the president to business and cultural figures, to be given the opportunity to edit the texts of question-and- answer interviews before publication.
During the Monday interview, Chirac made clear that a more profound problem than Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon was that a nuclear-armed Iran might encourage other regional players to follow suit.
"It is really very tempting for other countries in the region with large financial resources to say: 'Well, we too are going to do that; we're going to help others do it,'" he said. "Why wouldn't Saudi Arabia do it? Why wouldn't it help Egypt to do so as well? That is the real danger."
In the second interview, Chirac retracted his comment that Tehran would be destroyed if Iran launched a nuclear weapon.
"I take it back of course when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,'" he said. "It was of course a manner of speaking."
He added that any number of third countries would stop an Iranian bomb from ever reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," Chirac said. "We have the means, several countries have the means to destroy a bomb."
Chirac also retracted his prediction that a nuclear Iran could lead Saudi Arabia and Egypt to follow suit.
"I drifted — because I thought we were off the record — to say that, for example, Saudi Arabia or Egypt could be tempted to follow this example," he said. "I retract it, of course, since neither Saudi Arabia nor Egypt has made any declaration on these subjects, so it is not up to me to make them."
As for his musing in the first interview that Israel could be a hypothetical target of an Iranian attack, Chirac said, "I don't think I spoke about Israel yesterday. Maybe I have done so but I don't think so. I have no recollection of that."
There were other clarifications. In the initial interview, for example, Chirac referred to Iran's Islamic Republic as "a bit fragile." In the subsequent interview, he called Iran "a great country" with a "very old culture" that "has an important role to play in the region" as a force for stability.
Chirac's initial comments contradicted long-held official French policy, which holds that Iran must not go nuclear. The thinking is that a nuclear- armed Iran would give Iran the ability to project power throughout the region, threaten its neighbors and encourage other regional players to seek the bomb.
Under Chirac's presidency, France has joined the United States and other countries in moving to sanction Iran for refusing to stop enriching uranium, as demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council.
Just a few weeks ago, Chirac wanted to send his foreign minister to Iran to help resolve the crisis in Lebanon, an ini ative that collapsed when members of his own government said that it not only would fail, but would send a wrong signal to Iran at a time of sanctions against it.
But there also are divisions within the French government about how far Iran should be punished for behavior that the outside world might not be able to change. There are also concerns whether the more aggressive course of action toward Iran is reminiscent of the prelude to the American-led war in Iraq which France opposed.
Indeed, in noting the sanctions that were imposed by the Security Council against Iran last month, Chirac warned that escalation of the conflict by both sides was unwise. "Of course we can go further and further, or higher and higher up the scale in the reactions from both sides," he said. "But this is certainly not what he had in mind nor what we intend to do."
Chirac, who is 74 and about ready to end his second term as president, also had a different demeanor during the two encounters.
In the first interview, which took place in the morning, he appeared distracted at times, grasping for names and dates and relying on advisers to fill in the blanks. His hands shook slightly. When he spoke about climate change, he read from prepared talking points printed in large letters and highlighted in yellow and pink.
By contrast, in the second interview, which came just after lunch, he appeared both confident and completely comfortable with the subject matter.
The exclusive purpose of the initial interview was for Chirac to talk about climate change and an international conference for which he will be host in Paris later this week. The conference parallels a United Nations conference that will unveil a long-awaited report on the global environmental crisis.
The question about Iran followed a comment by Chirac on the importance of developing nuclear energy programs that are transparent, safe and secure.
Iran insists that the purpose of its uranium enrichment program is to produce peaceful nuclear energy; France, along with many other countries including the United States, is convinced that the program is part of a nuclear weapons program.
In the midst of his initial remarks on Iran, Chirac's spokesman passed him a handwritten note, which Chirac read aloud. "Yes, he's telling me that we have to go back to the environment," Chirac said. He then continued a discussion of Shiite Muslims, who are by far the majority in Iran but a minority in the Muslim world.
"Shiites do not have the reaction of the Sunnis or of Europeans," he said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/...nce.php?page=1
