Chirac belittles Iran bomb threat, then retracts-IHT

PARIS, Feb 1 (Reuters) French President Jacques Chirac told reporters an Iran that possessed one or two nuclear weapons would not pose much of a danger and then retracted many of his comments, the International Herald Tribune said today.

The paper said Chirac had made the comments, which varied vastly from the stated French position on Iran, in an interview with the IHT on Monday, but retracted them on Tuesday.

''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,'' the IHT quoted Chirac as saying in the initial interview.

''But what is very dangerous is proliferation. This means that if Iran continues in the direction it has taken and totally masters nuclear generated electricity, the danger does not lie in the bomb it will have, and which will be of no use to it.'' France, like other Western countries, are seeking to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. The UN Security Council has passed a resolution imposing limited sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

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

According to the IHT, Chirac said it would be an act of self-destruction for Iran to use a nuclear weapon against another country.

''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,'' it quoted Chirac as saying.

The IHT said it was not clear whether Chirac's initial remarks reflected what he truly thought about Iran or whether he had misspoken.

It said a transcript of the interview given to the paper by Chirac's office on Monday evening did not include Chirac's assessment of a nuclear-armed Iran or his prediction of what would happen if it ever tried to use it.

The IHT said the 74-year old Chirac had invited reporters back to a second interview on Tuesday, in which he said: ''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.'' REUTERS SI PM1408