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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (284282)	4/16/2006 1:16:46 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573829

Iran warns against US attack By Mark Heinrich 1 hour, 19 minutes ago Iran has expanded its uranium conversion facilities in Isfahan and reinforced its Natanz underground uranium enrichment plant, a U.S. think tank said, amid growing concern over possible U.S. military action. Talk of a U.S. attack has topped the international news agenda since a report in New Yorker magazine said this month that Washington was mulling the option of using tactical nuclear weapons to knock out Iran's subterranean nuclear sites. Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Sunday any U.S. attack on Iran would plunge the region into instability. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also warned that U.S. military intervention in Iran was not the best solution to resolve the nuclear standoff and a leading U.S. senator called for direct U.S. talks with Iran. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said in an email sent to news media that Iran has built a new tunnel entrance at a uranium processing plant in Isfahan. "This new entrance is indicative of a new underground facility or further expansion of the existing one," said ISIS, led by ex-U.N. arms inspector and nuclear expert David Albright. ISIS also released four satellite images taken between 2002 and January 2006 it said showed Natanz's two subterranean cascade halls being buried by successive layers of earth, apparent concrete slabs and more earth and other materials. The roofs of the halls now appear to be 8 meters (26 feet) underground, ISIS said. The revelations came one week after Iran announced it had enriched uranium for use in power stations for the first time, stoking a diplomatic row over Western suspicions of a covert Iranian atomic bomb project. Iran says it seeks nuclear power. Wielding the threat of sanctions, the United Nations Security Council has urged Iran to stop enrichment work and asked nuclear watchdog head Mohamed ElBaradei to report on Tehran's reply on April 28. Iran stood its ground when ElBaradei visited the country last week. President Bush has dismissed reports of plans for a military strike against Iran as "wild speculation" and said he remained focused on diplomacy to defuse the standoff. TAKING NO CHANCES But analysts said Iran was not taking any chances. "Iran is taking extraordinary precautions to try to protect its nuclear assets. But the growing talk of eliminating Iran's nuclear program from the air is pretty glib," Albright told Reuters by telephone from Washington. Despite Bush's denial, Iran's Rafsanjani said Tehran could not discount the possibility of a U.S. military strike. "Harm will not only engulf the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the region and everybody," the influential Iranian leader told a news conference during a visit to Syria. Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was still seeking a diplomatic solution for the crisis, "(but) America should be aware it is not in a position to create another crisis in the region," an apparent reference to Iraq. In Washington, Richard Lugar, a leading Republican senator, said the United States should hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program and go slow on sanctions. "We need to make more headway diplomatically" before moving toward sanctions, Lugar said on the ABC television program "This Week." Annan told Spain's ABC daily that the situation was "too heated" and could not withstand any further aggravation. "I still think the best solution is a negotiated one, and I don't see what would be solved by a military operation," he said. "I hope the will to negotiate prevails and that the military option proves to be only speculation." Pope Benedict, in a speech televised to millions of viewers at the end of Easter Sunday mass, also joined the chorus of leaders calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. "Concerning the international crises linked to nuclear power, may an honorable solution be found for all parties, through serious and honest negotiations," he said in a clear reference to Iran. Former White House counterterrorism head Richard Clarke wrote in Sunday's New York Times that a U.S. war with Iran could be even more damaging to America's interests than the Iraq war. In an article co-authored with Steven Simon, a former State Department official who also worked for the National Security Council, he warned that Iran's likely response would be to use "its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States." A hardline Iranian group said on Sunday 200 people had signed up in the past few days to carry out "martyrdom missions" against U.S. and British interests if Iran was attacked. (Additional reporting by Khaled Oweis in Damascus, Philip Pullella in Vatican City and Chris Michaud in New York, Jim Wolf in Washington and Parisa Hafezi in Tehran)