Chirac belittles Iran bomb threat, then retracts

PARIS, Feb 1 (Reuters) French President Jacques Chirac has said it would not be very dangerous for Iran to have a nuclear bomb, but later retracted the remark, according to an interview with two US newspapers and a French magazine published today.

Chirac spoke to reporters from the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur earlier this week, and in initial comments said Tehran would be razed to the ground if Iran launched a nuclear attack against Israel.

A day later, he called the trio of reporters back to his office and said he thought he had been speaking off the record and withdrew many of his remarks, the reporters said.

The IHT and New York Times said Chirac, 74, appeared distracted at times and struggled to remember names and dates in the first interview, but appeared more alert the next day.

''I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb -- having one, maybe a second one a little later, well, that's not very dangerous,'' Chirac was quoted as saying in the first interview.

His remarks went against the official position of France, and allies Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia and China, which are pressuring Tehran to abandon sensitive nuclear technology that could be used to make atom bombs.

Chirac said the main danger was that other countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, would follow suit.

''But what is very dangerous is proliferation,'' he said.

He added that Iran would be blitzed if it used its nuclear weapon. ''Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 metres into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground,'' the reporters quoted Chirac as saying.

STEPPING BACK The following day, the French president back-tracked: ''I retract it, of course, when I said, One is going to raze Tehran,''' the New York Times reported.

Chirac also retracted his prediction that a nuclear Iran could encourage Saudi Arabia and Egypt to build a bomb.

''I retract it, of course, since neither Saudi Arabia nor Egypt has made the slightest declaration on these subjects, so it is not up to me to make them,'' he said.

The IHT quoted him as saying: ''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 paper said it was not clear if Chirac's initial remarks reflected what he truly thought about Iran or whether he had misspoken.

The UN Security Council last year imposed limited sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its work on uranium enrichment, which makes fuel for power plants or bombs.

Iran denies charges that it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying it only wants atomic technology to generate electricity.

The IHT said that in the first interview, Chirac's hands shook slightly and he read from talking points printed in large letters when discussing the subject of climate change, which was supposed to be the main subject of the interview.

''By contrast, in the second interview, which came just after lunch, he appeared both confident and completely comfortable with the subject matter,'' the newspaper said.

Chirac is nearing the end of his second term in office and has said he will announce by the end of March whether he will run again in the April, May election.

His health has become an issue of debate ever since he was secretly admitted to hospital in September 2005 for a blood vessel problem that affected his vision and caused headaches.

REUTERS AKJ PM1518