Bush Warns Iran Anew on Nuclear Program

President Bush delivers a speech to the 88th Annual American Legion National Convention on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006 in Salt Lake City, Utah. President Bush on Thursday predicted victory in the war on terror at a time when Americans are disillusioned with his strategy, likening the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism with the fight against Nazis and communists in the last century. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac) (Douglas C. Pizac - AP)

SALT LAKE CITY -- President Bush said Thursday that Iran has responded with defiance and delay to demands to stop enriching uranium and said "there must be consequences" for Tehran.

Bush put the nuclear standoff with Iran in a larger context, saying the violence in Lebanon this summer makes Tehran's designs on the world stage clear. He blamed Iran for supporting the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, for helping to destabilize Iraq by sponsoring insurgents and supplying components for improvised explosive devices, and for denying basic human rights to millions of its own people.

"The world now faces a grave threat from the radical regime in Iran," the president said. "We know the depth of suffering that Iran's sponsorship of terrorists has brought. And we can imagine how much worse it would be if Iran were allowed to acquire nuclear weapons."

Bush delivered his starkest threat yet to Tehran in a speech to thousands of veterans at the American Legion convention.

"There must be consequences for Iran's defiance," he said, "and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons."

Thursday was the deadline for Tehran to heed the U.N. Security Council demand to stop enrichment.

Bush discussed Iran in a speech dealing largely with the war in Iraq. He said opponents of the war in Iraq who are calling for a plan to bring home troops would create a disaster in the Middle East.

"Many of these folks are sincere and they're patriotic but they could be _ they could not be more wrong," Bush said. "If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable, and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies _ Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al-Qaida terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban."