Chinese Mandarin - Chirac backtracks after gaffe on Iran bomb threat

WORLD / Europe

Chirac backtracks after gaffe on Iran bomb threat

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-02-02 09:36

Speculation about Chirac's health has mounted since he was secretly
admitted to hospital in September 2005 for a blood vessel problem that
affected his vision and caused headaches.

Chirac said in the first interview the main danger from Iran developing a
nuclear bomb was that others, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, would
follow suit, not that Tehran would use it.

"Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200
metres (650 ft) into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the
ground," the reporters quoted Chirac as saying.

The following day, the French president backtracked: "I retract it, of
course, when I said, One is going to raze Tehran'," the IHT and New York
Times quoted him as saying.

Chirac also withdrew his prediction that a nuclear Iran could encourage
Arab states to build a bomb.

"It is I who was wrong and I do not want to contest it ... I should have
paid better attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I
was on the record," the IHT quoted him as saying.

Chirac's office said the president had not changed his stance on Iran and
said the US dailies had acted improperly, even though the French magazine
also reported his U-turn.

"France, with the international community, cannot accept the prospect of
a nuclear-armed Iran," it said in a statement.

"It does not surprise us on the part of certain media from the other side
of the Atlantic, which will use any opportunity to attack France," his
office said.

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