American diplomats have been ordered to compile a dossier detailing Iran’s violations of international law that some fear could be used to justify military strikes against the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.
By Tim Shipman
Members of the US secretariat in the United Nations were asked earlier this month to begin “searching for things that Iran has done wrong”, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
Some US diplomats believe the exercise — reminiscent of attempts by vice-president Dick Cheney and the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to build the case against Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war — will boost calls for military action by neo-conservatives inside and outside the administration.
One diplomat revealed the plans for an Iran dossier to Steven Clemons, a fellow with the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, who has previously revealed attempts by Mr Cheney’s allies to pressurise President George W Bush into war.He said: “There are people more beholden to the Cheney side who have people searching for things that Iran has done wrong — making the case. They’ve been given instructions to build a dossier. They’ve been scouring around for stuff over the last couple of weeks.” He recently exposed how a member of Mr Cheney’s office used private meetings with neo-conservatives at the American Enterprise think-tank to reveal the vice-president’s frustration that Mr Bush had authorised a diplomatic strategy against Iran by his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.
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