Military calls Iran war plans routine

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is updating its war plan for Iran, a senior officer said yesterday, but he called the planning routine and said pressure on Iran to curb a nuclear-weapons program remains a diplomatic rather than military effort.

"We are in that process, that normal process, of updating our war plans," said Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces across the Mideast, Central Asia and parts of North Africa. "We try to keep them current, particularly if ... our region is active," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

Smith indicated the Iran contingency planning grew out of a broad, long-range effort to freshen routine plans for countries in the region, and was not the product of a specific or urgent request.

"I haven't been called into any late-night meetings at, you know, 8 o'clock at night, saying, 'Holy cow, we got to sit down and go plan for Iran,' " he said. "I'm not spending any of my time worrying about the nuclear proliferation in Iran," he said, adding that at this stage, diplomatic efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are "adequate for our needs."

Smith's comments came after a week in which the Bush administration has repeatedly warned Iran to give up what the U.S. contends is an effort to gain nuclear weapons.

Earlier yesterday, Rice told reporters in Brussels, Belgium, that the U.S. and its European allies had made their nonproliferation demands clear but have set "no deadline" for action by Tehran.

"The Iranians know what they need to do. They shouldn't be permitted, under cover of civilian nuclear power ... to try to build a nuclear weapon."

In Tehran, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami told foreign diplomats that no Iranian government would ever abandon the progress the country has made in developing peaceful nuclear technology.

Also yesterday, The Associated Press reported that the United States is lobbying allies in a bid to oust the head of the U.N. nuclear-watchdog agency, perhaps as early as the end of the month, according to diplomats and officials.

Anticipating that present European diplomatic efforts on Iran will fail, the diplomats and officials also told The Associated Press that Washington plans to increase pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program when the International Atomic Energy Agency meets Feb. 28.

Washington, which accuses Iran of making nuclear weapons and wants it brought before the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, considers IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei too soft on the Tehran leadership.

No U.S. comment was available on Washington's strategy for the upcoming IAEA board of governors meeting.

At the White House, President Bush emphasized that America and Europe would "speak with one voice" in pressuring Iran.

"The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message ... don't develop a nuclear weapon," he said during an appearance yesterday in the Oval Office with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Bush said he was "pleased" with the responses European leaders had given Rice during discussions on Iran.

Day to day, Smith said, the U.S. military is focused less on the long-range threat of a nuclear Iran than on Tehran's immediate efforts to gain political influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the cross-border flow of fighters from Iran that feeds Iraq's insurgency.

Tehran is also lending some support for the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia staged two bloody uprisings against the American-led occupation in several Iraqi cities last year, he said.