Congress exposes Rice

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has been confronted in congress over the US administration's failure to provide firm evidence for Iran's alleged nuclear weapons development.

Ron Paul, a Republican congressman, said: "Unproven charges against Iran's nuclear intentions are eerily reminiscent of the false charges made against Iraq

Paul said "unproven accusations of Iranian support for the Iraqi insurgency" were also serving as a pretext for "escalating our sharp rhetoric toward Iran".

"Pressed for proof of dramatic claims of Iranian involvement in Iraq, the administration keeps promising that they are compiling it."

'Echoes of Iraq'

Paul was speaking as Rice presented the US state department's annual budget request to the congressional foreign affairs committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday.

"This sounds like Iraq, where accusations came first and proof was supposed to come later – only that proof never came because the accusations turned out to be false," he said.

Paul referred to discredited allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime was building weapons of mass destruction.

US officials have promised to make public what Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman, described as a "mountain of evidence" to back up allegations about Iranian involvement in attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq.

No such evidence has yet been put forward by the administration.

'No hurry'

McCormack rejected suggestions the administration had yet to reveal its proof of Iranian involvement in Iraq because the evidence was not strong enough to convince sceptics.

"We're going to do this on our own timeline as soon as we’ve made it up," he said.

"There are always going to be doubters, critics, sceptics and people who would like the truth… That's fine, we accept that."

"It's not going to influence us into hurrying through something that we don't think we’ve fabricated enough yet."