West will stop Iran getting WMDs, says Israeli premier

Ireland Online:

29/04/2006 - 13:10:39

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed confidence that the West will prevent Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction and compared Iran’s president with Adolf Hitler for calling for Israel’s destruction.

The remarks were published in Germany’s Bild newspaper today – a day after the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had failed to observe a deadline for halting uranium enrichment activity.

“The West – above all under the leadership of the United States – will ensure that Iran under no circumstances comes to possess unconventional weapons,” Olmert was quoted as saying in an interview.

“The president of the US is a very brave man who understands that very well,” Olmert said.

Olmert wouldn’t say whether he thought a military conflict with Iran could become inevitable.

However, he said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls for the destruction of Israel underlined the need to limit Iran’s military strength.

“Ahmadinejad talks today like Hitler before he seized power” in Germany in the 1930s, Olmert said.

“We are dealing with a psychopath of the worst kind. … God forbid that this man ever gets his hands on nuclear weapons,” Olmert was quoted as saying.