US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was confronted by Republican Congressman Ron Paul over the administration’s failure to produce evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. During Rice’s presentation of the State Department’s annual budget request to the congressional foreign affairs committee, Congressman Paul said, “Unproven charges against Iran’s nuclear intentions are eerily reminiscent of the false charges made against Iraq.”

Paul drew further similarities between the allegations that Iran is building nuclear weapons and the claims that Saddam was building Weapons of Mass Destruction. “This sounds like Iraq, where accusations came first and proof was supposed to come later – only that proof never came because the accusations turned out to be false.”

He said that accusations of Iranian support for the Iraqi insurgency are also being used as a pretext for war. “Pressed for proof of dramatic claims of Iranian involvement in Iraq, the administration keeps promising that they are compiling it.” This statement is in reference to a “mountain of evidence” the administration claims it has against Iran, but has yet to release. Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman, said the evidence did exist, but that it would be released on their own “timeline”.

Secretary Rice dodged the main issue of nuclear weapons all together and focused instead on Iran’s support of groups the administration doesn’t like. She said that Iran’s support of terror was “well known and well-understood”, referring to Hezbollah and sectarian groups in Iraq. However, Rice did not make any mention of the group which supposedly attacked us on 9/11, al-Qaeda, nor the country where most of the hijackers were from, Saudi Arabia.

In 2003, Iran actually made an offer to the US that it would stop funding groups the US deemed terrorists and would help disarm Hezbollah. For some reason the administration rejected that offer.

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