Bush dismisses report of military plans against Iran

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Monday that force is not necessarily required to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, and he dismissed reports of plans for a military attack against Tehran as "wild speculation."\nBush said his goal is to keep the Iranians from having the capability or the knowledge to have a nuclear weapon.\n"I know we're here in Washington (where) prevention means force," Bush said during an appearance at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. "It doesn't mean force necessarily. In this case it means diplomacy."\nBush and other administration officials have said repeatedly that the military option is on the table, and White House officials acknowledge "normal" military planning is under way. Several reports published during the weekend said the administration was studying options for military strikes, and an account in The New Yorker magazine raised the possibility of using nuclear bombs against Iran's underground nuclear sites.\nBush did not directly respond to that report but said, "What you're reading is just wild speculation."\nBut Bush said he was correct to include Iran in the "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea and that he's glad to see other countries taking the threat from Iran seriously, too.\n"I got out a little early on the issue by saying 'axis of evil,'" Bush said. "But I meant it. I saw it as a problem. And now many others have come to the conclusion that the Iranians should not have a nuclear weapon."\nThe White House sought Monday to minimize new speculation about a possible military strike against Iran while acknowledging that the Pentagon is developing contingency plans to deal with Tehran's nuclear ambitions. The Pentagon has refused to describe its planning further.\nWhite House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to confirm or deny The New Yorker report. "Those who are seeking to draw broad conclusions based on normal military contingency planning are misinformed or not knowledgeable about the administration's thinking," he said.\nBritish Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in an interview Sunday with the British Broadcasting Corp., called the idea of a nuclear strike "completely nuts."\nStraw said Britain would not launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran, and he was as "certain as he could be" that neither would the United States. He said he has a high suspicion that Iran is developing a civil nuclear capability that, in turn, could be used for nuclear weapons, but he said there is "no smoking gun" to prove it and rationalize abandoning the plodding diplomatic process.\n"The reason why we're opposed to military action is because it's an infinitely worse option and there's no justification for it," Straw said.\nDefense experts say a military strike on Iran would be risky and complicated. U.S. forces already are preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan, and an attack against Iran could inflame U.S. problems in the Muslim world.\nThe U.N. Security Council has demanded Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program. But Iran has so far refused to halt its nuclear activity, saying the small-scale enrichment project was strictly for research and not for development of nuclear weapons.\nBush has said Iran might pose the greatest challenge to the United States of any other country in the world. And while he has stressed that diplomacy is always preferable, he has defended his administration's strike-first policy against terrorists and other enemies.\n"The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel," the president said last month in Cleveland. "That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally"