EL PASO, Texas - Despite a loud rattling of sabers over Iran in Iraq, the US military has not embarked on new planning for war, its chief spokesman said.

"I just want to be abundantly clear that there are no new directives, there are no new plans in the works, there is no new effort to prepare for a possible war with Iran," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters traveling with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Morrell acknowledged that the Pentagon has contingency plans and "we update them for every possibility."

"But to characterize what is going on now as a new war planning effort against Iran would be wrong," he said.

"There is nothing going on with regards to Iran beyond what we would normally do to update our plans for contingencies with almost any country that poses a threat," he said.

His comments came in response to a CBS News report on Tuesday that said the Pentagon had ordered new options to be drawn up for attacking Iran.

The report also said the State Department had begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell Iran to stop meddling in Iraq or else, if an upcoming visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not succeed in ending it.

Gates, during a visit to Mexico Tuesday, flatly denied that the United States was preparing for military attacks on Iran.

And as recently as last week in speech at the US Military Academy at West Point he said a war with Iran would have disastrous consequences.

But Gates also said he believes Tehran is "hell-bent" on acquiring nuclear weapons, and top US military leaders have insistently accused Iran of funding, arming and training Shiite extremists to kill US and coalition troops.

On Wednesday, a State Department report said Iran was the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism -- one that seeks to build regional influence and drive the United States from the Middle East.

"The temperature in Washington has been rising with respect to Iran," said Suzanne Moloney, a former State Department official now at the Brookings Institution.

"I see what's happening now perhaps distinct from what we've seen so far. It is very much linked to the situation on the ground in Iraq. There is a sense that we are coming more and more directly under attack from Iran," she said.

In Iraq, US forces have been hit with rising casualties, reversing a seven-month-long downturn in violence at a time when US surge brigades are pulling out of the country.

Gates on Tuesday attributed it to rocket attacks by Iranian-backed militias and to intensified fighting around the Shiite bastion of Sadr City in Baghdad.

Caches of Iranian-made weapons found in Basra last month had markings that showed they were manufactured this year, months after Maliki received a pledge from the Iranians that they would work to stop the flow of weapons, US defense officials say.

But Morrell said the evidence does not show "a dramatic uptick in Iranian actions within Iraq."

"However, we certainly see evidence that it continues whether it be the discovery of recent weapons caches, or the fact that we have had this week alone several US soldiers killed in rocket attacks on joint security stations or forward operating bases," he said.

"So it remains a problem, but I would steer you away from the notion that it is an escalating one. I don't know we have evidence to suggest it has escalated. But it certainly continues," he said.

The US military in Iraq has been preparing its evidence to present to the press, but "the Iraqis wish to first show what they have to the Iranian government before they show it to the world," a senior US defense official said.

Maliki is expected to meet in the coming days with the Iranians to show them the evidence against them, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official described Iraq's intentions in meeting with the Iranians as "an attempt to say, 'Hey listen, we know what you're up to. Cut it out.'"