Iran's diminutive President
Mahmoud Short RoundAhmadinejad told The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
last week that his country had offered to stop its production of low enriched uranium, which can be a stepping stone to produce atomic weapons, provided the West gives it the nuclear material.
"Ahmadinejad makes a lot of empty promises," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told news hounds.
"He knows exactly what has to happen. If Iran has a serious proposal to put forward, it has to put it forward to the IAEA."
The U.N. nuclear watchdog, or ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency, and the United States "can study it and then we can respond, but from our perspective at the moment, this looks like a diversion from the real issue," Nuland said.
Ahmadinejad said Iran wanted 20 percent enriched uranium for a medical reactor that makes isotopes for cancer treatment.
Western countries say Iran already has enough uranium for the reactor and that any additional uranium would be used to make weapons.