President Bush says he, among others, would like some answers about the new Iranian leader's past:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Thursday he wanted answers on whether Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a leader in the 1979 U.S. Embassy siege as some former hostages have said.

Several of the Americans who were held said they recognized the ultraconservative Tehran mayor -- who was elected president in a landslide on Friday -- as a ringleader in the hostage-taking.

However, two leading figures in the embassy seizure said he did not take part.

"I have no information," Bush told reporters during a briefing on the upcoming G8 summit in Scotland. "But obviously his involvement raises many questions, and knowing how active people are at finding answers to questions, I'm confident they will be found."

Bush also issued a warning to Ahmadinejad, 48, that he and European leaders would send a "strong message" to him about their concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

In the 1979-1981 hostage crisis that led Washington to break ties with Tehran, 52 Americans were held for 444 days.

Bush has branded Iran as part of an "axis of evil" for allegedly pursuing nuclear arms and sponsoring terrorism. Iran denies the charges.

In interviews with U.S. television networks, retired Navy Capt. Donald Sharer and Bill Daugherty said they were convinced Ahmadinejad was one of their Iranian captors.

***

Others posting:

Bill Hobbs: "Twenty six years after, the mass-murdering thug is now the president-elect of Iran, and soon his government will have nukes, and the civilized world will face the worst possible nightmare scenario: a nuclear-armed terrorism-exporting Islamofacist regime...It's a good thing America has a major military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries that border Iran. Because the Iranian hostage crisis isn't over yet."

Pejmanesque: "If this is true, then Iran is in for an even worse time than I thought--especially given the international community's disgust at the possibility of having to deal with a hostage-taker as Iran's president. And by the way, shouldn't this have been an issue during the actual campaign? Shouldn't Iranians have known that a man who perhaps was a hostage-taker was running for president? Shouldn't they have had the chance to consider what this might do to Iran's already tattered international reputation?"

The Jawa Report: "Some are questioning the authenticity of the photos, saying that they are photoshopped. However, given the fact that they are from multiple sources and that multiple biographies of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad all claim he was a leader in the group that masterminded the hostage takings, these gainsayers' objections should be dismissed."

Ace of Spades: "Eh. Not too surprising coming from Iran."

Interested-Participant: "It would be hard to dispute the contention that Iran is a terrorist nation when the "population" just elected a known terrorist as president. By any reasonable measure of justice, Ahmadinejad should be in prison, not the presidential palace."

Regime Change Iran (with pictures)
Gateway Pundit
Little Green Footballs
Polipundit
Iran News Blog
Iran Focus
Emergent Chaos
All Things Conservative
Jimgoism
Slant Point