JERUSALEM, Jan 6: US President George Bush said Washington would defend its close ally Israel in the event of an Iranian attack, in remarks broadcast on Israeli army radio on Sunday.“Whether there’s an imminent attack coming, I don’t think so,” Bush said in excerpts of an interview with an Israeli television station. “If Iran did strike Israel... We will defend our ally, no ands, ifs or buts,” he said.

Bush’s statements came just days before he arrives in the region for his first visit since taking office in January 2001 and the first trip by a sitting US president since December 1998.

“If I were an Israeli, I would take the words of the Iranian president seriously, and as president of the United States I take them seriously,” Bush said. International support for further sanctions against Iran has been waning since a US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in early December said that the Islamic republic had halted a nuclear weapons programme in 2003.—AFP