U.S. updates its Iran war plan, N.Korea has nuclear arms

2/10/2005 6:00:00 PM GMT

A senior officer revealed that the U.S. military is now updating its war plan for Iran. However, he said that this was a routine planning. Also North Korea announced on Thursday that it possesses nuclear arms, rejecting moves to start disarmament talks any time soon, justifying that saying it needs those weapons for protection against the United States.

"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, responsible for U.S. forces stationed 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 stated that the Iran war plan grew out of a broad, long-range effort to freshen routine plans for countries in the region.

"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."

Meanwhile, the Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said that Tehran doesn’t intend to abandon the progress it has made in its peaceful nuclear program.

Yesterday, the Associated Press news agency reported that the United States is lobbying allies to help it remove Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear-watchdog agency, the IAEA, by the end of the month.

U.S. officials says that Washington plans to step up international pressure on Iran to force it suspend its nuclear program when the International Atomic Energy Agency meets Feb. 28.

On the other hand, 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," Bush said yesterday during an appearance in the Oval Office with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Bush said that the international community must unite against what he called the Iranian threat, to pressure the Islamic Republic give up its nuclear program, which Iran asserts is a peaceful program.

While Washington insists that Iran is covertly trying to develop a nuclear weapons program and is trying to refer it to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, North Korea announced for the first time that it has nuclear weapons and asserted it was not considering to start disarmament talks any time soon, saying it needs those arms as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

North Korea’s announcement is seen as posing a grave challenge to President Bush who vowed to put an end to Korea's controversial nuclear program in his second term.

"We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North)," said North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

N. Korea's "nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the ministry said. "The present reality proves that only powerful strength can protect justice and truth."

"We have wanted the six-party talks but we are compelled to suspend our participation in the talks for an indefinite period till we have recognized that there is justification for us to attend the talks," the North said.

North Korea said it made the decision because "the U.S. disclosed its attempt to topple the political system in (North Korea) at any cost, threatening it with a nuclear stick."

In private talks with U.S. negotiators in the past, North Korea admitted it possesses nuclear weapons and might test one of them. Last year, N.Korea UN envoy said that the country had "weaponized" plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods.
On the other hand, President Bush emphasized that America and Europe would "speak with one voice" in pressuring Iran.

But Thursday's statement was North Korea's first public acknowledgment that it possesses nuclear arms. North Korea makes all important statements in the name of its Foreign Ministry spokesman and spreads them through KCNA.

"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," Bush said yesterday during an appearance in the Oval Office with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. `