On the September 19 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN host Wolf Blitzer left unchallenged a claim by U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton that “the Europeans have been saying, the Security Council has said, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said” that Iran must suspend its enrichment of uranium as “the precondition” for negotiations on its nuclear capability. However, moments earlier, CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported that U.S. officials “will allow the Europeans to continue to talk with the Iranians.” Moreover, according to a September 19 Associated Press report, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has “acknowledged that talks are already under way between the European Union and Tehran without preconditions.”

The United States has refused to join the ongoing talks between the European Union and Iran until Iran has suspended its uranium enrichment. According to a September 19 report by The New York Times, Bush administration officials have acknowledged that “the Europeans and Iranians might hold preliminary talks on suspension, and once Iran verifiably suspended enrichment, America could join those talks.”

While Blitzer let Bolton's assertion about the European Union go unchallenged, CNN anchor and commentator Jack Cafferty noted later in the program that President Bush “insists the U.S. will not cooperate with Iran until it stops enriching uranium, and until then, the only talks going on are, as Suzanne Malveaux mentioned, among Iran, France, Germany, and Britain.”

From the September 19 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

MALVEAUX: If you take a look at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, where's she going to be this evening? Meeting with her counterparts, the Europeans, who have been quietly talking to Iran for weeks now, trying to figure out a way to get them to suspend their enrichment uranium program and then get them back to the table.

BLITZER: It's a -- I think it's fair to assume that the president of the United States won't be in the audience when the Iranian leader speaks later tonight as well.

MALVEAUX: That's right. He's not --

BLITZER: I think --

MALVEAUX: He's going to be a no-show.

BLITZER: He is going to be a no-show there as well. The U.S. wants tough sanctions against Iran unless it suspends its uranium enrichment program. There's problems getting the Russians on board, the Chinese, but apparently now there seems to be a little split developing with the French.

MALVEAUX: Well, you know what was interesting today is that Jacques Chirac, the French president, even before the address to the U.N. General Assembly, really kind of split this division wide open.

But what he did was he acknowledged something that's been happening quietly for some time. And that is, he said, “Look, why doesn't the United States put off this idea, suspend this idea of imposing economic sanctions while we're talking to the Iranians?”

President Bush and Chirac both saw -- they were together, they were both seen together today, they said they're on the same page. But even President Bush today acknowledged, he said that we will go ahead and if they continue to stall, then we'll go ahead with these discussions on the sanctions.

So there does seem to be some wiggle room here, that they will allow the Europeans to continue to talk with the Iranians and, at the same time, press for sanctions, perhaps at a later date. So there's wiggle room.

[...]

BLITZER: This is the Super Bowl for you guys, here, this time of the year when the General Assembly convenes. The president spoke briefly but to the point. Let's talk about Iran right now. Are you convinced that Iran will suspend its nuclear enrichment program under any circumstances given their desire, apparent desire to build a bomb?

BOLTON: No, and that's the real test. And we have been saying, the Europeans have been saying, the Security Council has said, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that that is the precondition for these negotiations to proceed. So we've given them a lot of latitude. We've got a very generous, a very generous offer on the table. We want to hear from them that they're going to suspend their uranium enrichment operations.

[...]

BLITZER: Is Senator [George] Voinovich [R] of Ohio right when he compares [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad to Hitler?

BOLTON: I think any man who denies the existence of the Holocaust and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map hasn't learned the lessons of history, and I don't know what kind of comparison you can draw other than that.

BLITZER: Well, would you make a similar comparison?

BOLTON: That's not my function. I mean, I -- what I do is, is follow the policy set by the president and the secretary. We all have -- we all have our personal opinions. I think it's unacceptable for the head of a member government of the United Nations that says -- the charter of which says that we're to resolve our differences by peaceful means to have somebody like that calling for another U.N. member state to be wiped off the map.

BLITZER: Is that why you don't think the president or other top officials should be meeting with Iranian leaders right now?

BOLTON: Well, the -- we have made an incredibly generous offer to Iran on the nuclear question, even though they're a principal state sponsor of terrorism. We've even been willing to put that aside to say we would be prepared with the Europeans and the Russians and the Chinese to sit down with Iran if they do one thing -- they suspend their uranium enrichment activity. And that's not the U.S.' condition, that's the Europeans' condition, it's the Security Council condition, it's the IAEA's condition.

BLITZER: The stakes are enormous right now. John Bolton, thanks very much for coming in.