Atomic Agency Head to U.S.: Tone Down Iran Rhetoric; Slams Israeli Raid

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency wants the Bush administration to tone down its anti-Iranian rhetoric. In a television interview in the United States on Sunday Mohammed El-Baradei called on the American administration to stop "spinning and hyping the Iranian issue," which he said added "fuel to the fire." El-Baradei also had sharp criticism for Israel‘s September 6 raid into Syria during which it is believed that a nuclear facility being built with help from North Korea was destroyed. El-Baradei said it was "unhelpful" to "bomb first and ask questions later." He lashed out at the Israelis, charging that they had "no business" bombing the site because there wasn’t "any evidence at all" that it was a nuclear facility. He was interviewed on CNN’s Late Edition.