The US Government HAS Been Talking to Iran

The Bush administration continually asserts that it absolutely refuses to speak to the Iranian government until it stops the development of its nuclear program.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. A question about the Iraq Study Group Report. One of the things that it recommends is greater dialogue, direct talks with Syria and Iran. James Baker himself, Secretary of State under your father, says that it's a lot like it was during the Cold War when we talked to the Soviet Union. He says it's important to talk to your adversaries. Is he wrong?

THE PRESIDENT: Let me start with Iran. We made it perfectly clear to them what it takes to come to the table, and that is a suspension of their enrichment program. If they verifiably suspend -- that they've stopped enrichment, we will come to the table with our EU3 partners and Russia, and discuss a way forward for them.
- Press Conference, December 2006

We now discover - tucked away in an Australian newspaper story - that the US government has been speaking to them after all:

"We warned Iran privately on a number of occasions over the last year and a half and the Iranians, of course, did not appear to listen to that, so now we've begun to detain those Iranian officials [in Iraq]," [US Undersecretary of State] Burns said.

This echoes the denials the Bush administration has made about talking to Syria and North Korea, while actually doing so.