AIPAC seeks 'crippling' sanctions against Iran

Powerful pro-Israel US lobby group AIPAC, in a rare letter to every member of the US Congress, called Tuesday for "crippling new sanctions on Iran" over Tehran's suspect nuclear program. "Iran has pursued a nuclear weapons capability... the United States must take action now," it said. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee also pressed Congress to look into why companies that do business with Iran's energy sector have never been punished under a 1996 US law aimed at discouraging such investments. In the letter, signed by executive director Howard Kohr and president David Victor, AIPAC expressed "outrage" over a recent New York Times report charging that Washington gave billions of dollars to firms that do business in Iran.