Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's claim that he was misquoted by a German magazine as threatening Iran with a ten-day 1,000-missile attack has been accepted by the publication, which has removed the quotes.
German-based Focus magazine, published online an interview by Iranian-born reporter Amir Taheri, in which Taheri asked the prime minister whether military action would be an option if Iran continues to defy the United Nations. It quoted Olmert saying: "Nobody is ruling it out. It is impossible perhaps to destroy the entire nuclear program but it would be possible to damage it in such a way that it would be set back years…It would take 10 days and would involve the firing of 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles."
Taheri apologized late Saturday night to Olmert, and reportedly told Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisen that he had not included the false statements in the interview he submitted to Focus. Taheri said that he had asked Focus to remove the fake quotes from its website.
Olmert's spokesperson Miri Eisin said Saturday that Olmert had indeed had a meeting with Taheri, but that he did not make the statement attributed to him in the Focus article. Eisin also said the reporter attended the 35-minute meeting with the understanding that it was for background purposes and not an interview that would be published.
"The prime minister did not say these things," she said at a hastily-called press conference Saturday. A statement released by Olmert’s office read: “The statements published are... utter lie[s] and were never said…This a cynical exploitation of an invitation for a background conversation, which led to the publication of a false report.”
Channel 2 TV reported that Taheri did not record or take notes during his meeting with Olmert, and was clearly informed that the content of the meeting was off-the-record.
According to Reuters, Focus’s foreign affairs editor Ulrich Schmidla said he would try to contact Taheri for clarifications. Focus later softened the headline it had given the interview from “Israel threatens Iran" to "Israel toughens its tone against Iran" and is now expected to remove that element from the article entirely.
"The impression created, as if Olmert said that there was an operative plan to strike, was exaggerated and it is now clear that Olmert's statements were not aimed as a threat on Iran," a Focus editor told Yediot Acharonot.
The article downplays Olmert’s conciliatory statements like, "We must give the UN process time to take effect…We have no intention of attacking Iran at the moment…I don't think that Iran is about to cross the nuclear technology threshold as its leaders claim…We still have time to stop them."
Olmert also said of an attack: "Such an operation would turn other Muslim countries against us and cause even bigger problems.”