Cheney says Iran wants uranium for weapons

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview released Tuesday that Iran is trying to develop weapons-grade uranium, although U.N. inspectors and U.S. intelligence services have not found any such evidence.

“Obviously, they’re also heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels,” Cheney said, according to a transcript released by the White House of an interview done Monday in Turkey with ABC-TV.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy production, but the United States and other Western countries fear that the regime eventually will develop nuclear weapons.

The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report found that Iran is enriching uranium at its plant in Natanz at concentrations of less than 3.8 percent, which is the amount necessary for creating fuel for a civilian reactor. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched or concentrated at 80 percent to 90 percent.

Cheney’s comment also contradicted the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies, which concluded in a report late last year that Iran had halted its efforts nuclear weapons efforts in 2003.