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Bush Wants Answers on Iranian Leader's Past
efl WASHINGTON ââ¬â The Bush administration today demanded that the Iranian government clarify the role of President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the prolonged hostage crisis that followed. The administration also pledged to conduct its own investigation into Ahmadinejad's past after several of the 52 Americans held hostage in the embassy said in tough, unequivocal statements that they had recognized the next Iranian leader as one of their captors. However, at least two other former hostages said they were unable to recall the president-elect as a participant in their ordeal. "The Iranian government ... has an obligation to speak definitively concerning these questions that have been raised in public," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. Both McCormack and White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the United States would launch its own efforts to determine Ahmadinejad's precise role in the crisis. "I think the news reports and statements from several former American hostages raise many questions about his past," McClellan told reporters. "We take them very seriously and we are looking into them to better understand the facts." The 444-day ordeal of the Americans held captive in the Tehran embassy marked one of the most searing and emotional collective public experiences in recent American history, an incident that still weighs heavily on the Iranian-American relationship. The two countries have had no formal diplomatic ties since the takeover despite the passing of more than a quarter-century. It was not clear how the new allegations might affect the struggle within the Bush administration over how to deal with Tehran. Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-06-30 |
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