Iran's Ahmadinejad Says Nuclear Program Will Proceed

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran's nuclear program had grown 10 times stronger in the last year and said Western powers were wrong if they thought Iran would retreat under political pressure from its nuclear plans. Ahmadeinejad's comments came as diplomats in Vienna said Iran is expanding its uranium enrichment program even as the U.N. Security Council focuses on possible sanctions for Tehran's defiance of its demand that it give up the activity and ease fears it seeks nuclear weapons, diplomats said. "Today the Iranian nation's (nuclear) strength is ten times stronger than it was last year at the beginning of this glorious path," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to a crowd in the southern city of Rey. "On the other hand, our enemy's strength has become ten times less than it was last year. "They (the West) should know that taking advantage of nuclear energy is the demand of all the Iranian nation," he said, adding that "the Iranian nation insists on this right and will not retreat one iota."