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The United States scrambled to hold together a global alliance of suspicion against Iran, saying the clerical regime still has much to answer for despite a US reversal of its claim that Tehran is currently seeking nuclear weapons.
US President George W. Bush opened a trip to Nebraska with a warning about Iran - his second in the two days since American intelligence agencies jointly concluded that Iran had long ago dropped active military nuclear ambitions.
US Vice-President Dick Cheney acknowledged that the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran might make it harder to build international support to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment programme.
"There's nothing in the NIE that said we should be concerned about their enrichment activities," Cheney said.
Asked whether the intelligence report made that task more difficult, Cheney replied: "Perhaps, but it wasn't easy to begin with."
Bush's top diplomat, who must explain and sell the shifted US position among European allies later this week, pushed anew yesterday for international solidarity on Iran.
No allies have told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit to Addis Ababa, that they want to back out of a US-led drive for new sanctions on Iran, but the Administration is worried that the new assessment weakens its leverage over Iran and drains the urgency from international efforts to roll back Iran's nuclear programme.
Bush demanded that Tehran detail its previous programme to develop nuclear weapons, "which the Iranian regime has yet to acknowledge".
"The Iranians have a strategic choice to make. They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities, and accept US-backed terms for new nuclear negotiations, or they can continue on a path of isolation."
- AP
