Miss Atom-2006, Tasha Knish, takes a break from her duties.

WASHINGTON - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that since Iran has successfully produced the enriched uranium needed to make nuclear fuel, his nation's most radiant female employee in the nuclear sector should be able to compete in Miss Atom-2007.

U.S. President George Bush angrily responded that the prestigious pageant is only open to "beautiful nuclear ladies from 18-35 years of age who work in the free world." Nevertheless, a spokesman said that the Iranian president was determined to have his country glowingly represented. In a televised speech in the northwestern holy city of Mashhad, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which will compete in Miss Atom-2007." His audience broke into cheers and chants of "Allahu akbar" (God is great).

Delegates from 188 countries met this past week with contest organizers and judges. Concern over Iran held center stage. The top U.S. official there said that the international community should cut Iran out of any nuclear beauty pageants because their entry will cheat. They also hinted that President Bush would never enter American girls into a contest with Iran because he thinks that country's president and its reigning mullahs are "philistines."

Some longtime beauty pageant advocates like Donald Trump share the administration's worry over Iran's threat to Miss Atom-2007. "If we let Turkey and Pakistan and these other countries get into this pageant, of course many more countries will want in, too," he said. "And then you have a world where many countries have miniskirted lovelies working with nuclear technology. That's too risky a situation to be able to tolerate. We've got to stop it here. We've got to stop it now."

Others experts say Iran is years away from having a killer contestant, while New Zealand and Luxemburg accuse the U.S. of undercutting its own position by having the Pentagon and the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery develop a new kind of pageant-buster nuclear beauty.

Voting will take place online and the winner will be crowned with the coveted Golden Centrifuge Award at the International Atomic Energy Talent Agency's VIP ceremony at Crobar, one of New York's hottest clubs.