Close shave: How the US almost gunned down Iranian president Ahmadinejad.

Close shave: How the US almost gunned down Iranian president Ahmadinejad.(RT).A Secret Service agent re adjusting a shotgun mounted on a vehicle in former President George W. Bush’s motorcade discharged the weapon by accident as President Ahmadinejad left the Inter Continental Hotel in New York.

A new book entitled ‘Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry’ by Marc Ambinder and DB Grady has lifted the lid on the Secret Service blunder and the reasons it was covered up.

“A US Secret Service agent, in an apparent accident, discharged his shotgun as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was loading his motorcade at the Inter Continental Hotel yesterday,” wrote Bush’s daily intelligence brief the day after the incident according to an official cited in the book.

“Everyone just stopped,” the official said.

“The Iranians looked at us and we looked at the Iranians. The agent began to apologize. Ahmadinejad just turned his head and got into his car.” The book proposes that some Washington officials interpreted the Iranians’ silence as evidence that Tehran was acting cautiously and strategically.

The incident was quickly swept under the rug by the Bush administration which was, at that time, discussing how to deal with Tehran’s alleged atomic weapons program. The gunshot issue had the potential to spark a major international scandal, but was confined to an item in one of the president’s daily intelligence briefs.

Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons program has been a significant obstacle to US-Iranian relations over recent years. The Obama administration has sought to curtail Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by ratcheting up economic sanctions on Iran, while US ally Israel has made numerous calls for a preemptive strike on its nuclear facilities.Read the full story here.