Gadhafi supports Iran's nuclear program

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Wednesday that Iran should be left alone to pursue a peaceful nuclear energy program and that his own nation was close to making an atomic bomb before it voluntarily shut down its secret program in 2003.

Gadhafi's comments came in an address to the opening session of a Non-Aligned Movement summit held at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik. Libya and Iran are members of the 118-nation movement.

He said the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog _ the International Atomic Energy Agency _ should be the judge of whether Iran is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons through its uranium enrichment program as the United States and Israel claim.

Iran …