Hersh wrote, "There is a growing concern among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush's ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change."

A former defense official who still advises the Bush administration told Hersh that the military planning is grounded in the belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."

This reasoning is counter-intuitive. Iranians who become the victims of US aggression are much more likely to rally around the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran and fight to expel the foreign infidels.

"Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups," Hersh learned from current and former American military and intelligence officials.

One of the military proposals calls for the use of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons against underground nuclear sites. That would mean "mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years," a former senior intelligence official informed Hersh.

A Pentagon adviser said the Air Force would strike many hundreds of targets in Iran, 99 percent of which have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.

It would not just be Iranians who take the hits, the Pentagon adviser told Hersh. "If we go [into Iran]," he said, "the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle." Our troops in Iraq would be at risk of retaliation from Iran and the Muslim world, according to the Washington Post.

Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, said Tuesday that in response to an invasion of Iran by the United States, Iran's first target would be Israel.

Once again, Team Bush is whipping the media - and its consumers - into a frenzy of fear, this time against a nuclear Iran.

Two weeks ago, Condoleezza Rice said that Bush administration officials "have to be concerned when there are statements from Iran that Iran would not only like to have this technology but would share it, share technology and expertise." Rice also said, "We can't let this continue."

Never mind that Western nuclear scientists said last month that Iran lacks the skill, material and equipment to fulfill its immediate nuclear ambitions, the New York Times reported.

Once again, a "preventive" war initiated by Bush would violate the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of armed force against another country unless it poses an imminent threat, or when the Security Council authorizes an attack.

Bush is following the same route he took on the way to regime change in Iraq. He pressured members of the Security Council for a resolution threatening Iraq. The Council passed Resolution 1441. France, Russia and China issued a joint statement specifying, "Resolution 1441 (2002) adopted today by the Security Council excludes any automaticity in the use of force." In other words, the US would have to return to the Council to secure authorization to invade Iraq.

Bush was unable to secure a second resolution from the Council that would authorize an attack on Iraq. So Bush rationalized his invasion by cobbling together Resolution 1441 and two prior Council resolutions from the Gulf War. None of these, separately or collectively, provided a legal basis for Bush's war on Iraq.

A draft Security Council resolution on Iran, which is supported by Britain, France and the US, was circulated on Wednesday. The next day, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said, "My conviction is that military action is certainly no solution." Russia and China, the other two permanent members of the Security Council, concur with de Villepin's sentiments.

But, as it did in Iraq, the British government would likely support Bush if he decides to attack Iran.

Tony Blair has signaled his support of a US military strike, warning that ruling out military action would send a "message of weakness" to Iran.

Last month, Britain's then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, branded the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran as "completely nuts." He said military action against Iran was "inconceivable," and warned his Cabinet colleagues that it would be illegal for Britain to support US military action against Iran.

On Friday, Straw was rewarded for his candor with removal from his position as foreign secretary. Both the Independent and the Guardian in London wrote that Straw's "fate was sealed" after an angry call from the White House to Blair. The Independent reported that friends of Straw believe Bush was extremely upset at Straw's comment that the use of nukes against Iran was "nuts."

When asked a few days ago about the possibility of a nuclear strike on Iran, Bush stated unequivocally, "All options are on the table."

The Bush administration is undoubtedly pushing the draft resolution as a step along the way to its unilateral use of armed force against Iran.

The draft states that the Council would be "acting under Chapter VII" of the UN Charter. This means that it would be based on a finding of a threat to international peace and security, would be legally binding, and could be the basis for the later imposition of sanctions or the authorization of force.

Yury Fedotov, the Russian ambassador in London, explained that Russia opposed the Chapter VII reference because it is reminiscent of past resolutions on Iraq and Yugoslavia that led to US-led military action which had not been authorized by the Security Council.

"We have serious doubts sanctions would work," Fedotov said. "[They] could pave the way to a military action. The military option is a nonsense. It's [an] adventure that could threaten international stability in this region and beyond."

Indeed, there is no basis for a finding that Iran poses a threat to international peace and security, according to John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy.

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency found Iran to be in non-compliance with some requirements of the non-proliferation and disarmament regime, the IAEA has clearly said there is no evidence that Iran has diverted its declared nuclear materials to weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, who is not necessarily the controlling power in Iran, has engaged in belligerent rhetoric. "This is deplorable," says Burroughs, "but it does not establish a threat to the peace. There has also been belligerent rhetoric coming from Israel and the United States."

Given the stakes, it would seem logical that the Bush administration would pursue a diplomatic solution and avoid another disastrous conflagration in the Middle East.

Hugh Porter reported in Asia Times that even Ahmedinajad is amenable to negotiation. The Iranians, he writes, are willing to compromise on enrichment if they can achieve security guarantees against attack.

But Bush refuses to talk to Iran's leadership. Richard Armitage,deputy secretary of state in Bush's first term, warns that "diplomacy is not simply meant for our friends. It is meant for our enemies."

When he inaugurated Iran into his "axis of evil," Bush defined Iran as our enemy. Sanctions, or an attack, on Iran would hurt the Iranian moderates, whom the US should view as allies.

Moreover, invading Iran may well achieve precisely the opposite of what it portends to do. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace maintains it would strengthen Iran's resolve to develop nukes. It "is almost certain to accelerate a nuclear bomb program rather than destroy it." Cirincione said, "It's clear to me there's no military solution to the Iran problem."

Bush's threatened aggression against Iran is no more about nuclear weapons than Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction. It is propelled by an agenda of the neo-conservatives and Washington's pro-Israel lobby. The US seeks to control the entire Middle East and its valuable oil deposits by changing Iran's regime, installing a US-friendly government, and building permanent US military bases.

It's deja vu with the 1953 CIA coup that removed the democratically-elected Mossadeq and installed the tyrannical Shah of Iran. After 25 years of tyranny, the Iranian people rose up and removed the Shah from power, replacing him with Ayatollah Khomeini's theocracy. The chickens came home to roost.

Bolton said Saturday, "We are still working to achieve unanimity [in the Security Council] ... but we're prepared to go to a vote without it."

It is time to take the military option against Iran off the table.

Rice said the letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 17 or 18 pages long and covered history, philosophy and religion.

Rice's comments were the most detailed response from the United States to the letter, the first from an Iranian head of state to an American president since the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

She would not discuss the contents in detail but made clear that the United States would not change its tack on Iran.

"There's nothing in here that would suggest that we're on any different course than we were before we got the letter," Rice said.

The United States has had no diplomatic ties and almost no economic relationship with Iran since the storming of the embassy and the kidnapping of U.S. diplomats.

Rice was using a two-day trip to the United Nations to confer on the international response to Iran, but she said she expected no quick action on sanctions or other measures.

The letter, which was not made public, appeared timed to blunt the U.S. drive for a U.N. Security Council vote this week to restrain the Islamic regime's nuclear ambitions. It was a striking change after the fiery Ahmadinejad's campaign to vilify Washington and its allies as bullies.

Iran contends it has the right to process uranium as fuel in nuclear reactors to generate electricity. The United States, Britain and France are concerned that the program is a cover for making nuclear weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush had been briefed on the letter, which the White House received Monday through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. He would not comment on whether it was actually signed by the Iranian president.

"It does not appear to do anything to address the nuclear concerns" of the international community, McClellan told reporters traveling on Air Force One with Bush to Florida.

The Iranian government spokesman who disclosed the communication did not mention the nuclear standoff and said the missive spoke to the larger U.S.-Iranian conflict.

The linchpin to any better understanding between Washington and Tehran, however, would be movement toward a solution of the nuclear issue.

According to government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham, the letter proposed "new solutions for getting out of international problems and the current fragile situation of the world."

Elham declined to reveal more, stressing "it is not an open letter." And when he was asked if the letter could lead to direct U.S.-Iranian negotiations, he replied: "For the time being, it's just a letter."

In Turkey, Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said the Iranians were looking for a positive response but would be patient.

"Perhaps it could lead to a new diplomatic opening. It needs to be given some time," Larijani said in a television interview. He cautioned that the "tone of the letter is not something like softening."

The United States has publicly sought renewed contact with Iran through its ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been authorized to speak to Iranian officials about security in Iraq.

U.S. officials say the talks await selection of a new Iraqi government and were to be limited to Iraqi security issues. Such meetings would provide an opportunity to broaden discussions about the U.S.-Iranian relationship.

Before the Ahmadinejad letter was announced, Bush said he was paying close attention to threats made against
Israel by Ahmadinejad, who has questioned Israel's right to exist and said the country should be wiped off the map.

"I think that it's very important for us to take his words very seriously," Bush told the German newspaper Bild on Friday, according to a transcript released Sunday. "When people speak, it is important that we listen carefully to what they say and take them seriously."

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered the letter to the Swiss ambassador Monday, ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the AP. The Swiss Embassy acts as a U.S. interest section in the Iranian capital.

The letter appeared as the lead item on several Iranian television and radio news shows throughout the day. The official IRNA announced the letter and carried international reaction to it. Iran's only evening daily, the state-owned Ettalaat, carried a large story on its front page under the headline: "Important letter from Ahmadinejad to the American president."

On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad travels to Indonesia, where Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said, "We support nuclear development for peaceful purposes, especially energy, but we consistently object to nuclear weapons proliferation."

The United States is backing efforts by Britain and France to win Security Council approval for a U.N. resolution that would threaten possible further measures if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment. If taken to sufficient levels, the process can produce fuel for nuclear warheads.

Russia and China, the two other veto-holding members of the Security Council members, oppose sanctions.

According to the official, who declined to give his name, the ministers did not spend much time discussing the draft resolution proposed by Britain and France, but focused on exchanging views on the strategic approach to Iran's nuclear issue in the future.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted talks and a dinner for her counterparts from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union in a bid to find some common ground on their approach to Iran's nuclear issue. The talks and dinners were held at Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

The six ministers spent two hours seated on couches in the presidential suite of the hotel, far exceeding the 45 minutes originally planned. They were accompanied by interpreters but no aides for the talks, said the official.

France and Britain, backed by the United States, on Wednesday proposed a new draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding Iran suspend all enrichment activities immediately or face possible sanctions.

The draft invokes Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, under which the council can resort to economic or diplomatic sanctions, or even military action, to ensure its decisions are implemented.

Russia insists the draft resolution need adjustment. Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya reiterated that both the UN Security Council and the international community should hold consultations seriously on Iran's nuclear issue to resolve the crisis through better means.

Yesterday, in his monthly press conference, the prime minister, Tony Blair, said foreign policy under the new foreign secretary "will not change one iota".

That was in response to continued Westminster speculation that Mr Straw might have been shifted to facilitate a future attack on Iran. Mr Blair has been far less outspoken in ruling out military options.

In New York last night, asked whether she believed a military strike on Iran was inconceivable - the word used repeatedly by Mr Straw - Mrs Beckett said: "No-one has the intention to take military action.

"That was not discussed, it's not an issue.

"What people are concerned to do is to get Iran to recognise the strong view and the clear will of the international community that they should comply with the IEAE (International Atomic Energy Agency) board."

She added: "You're inviting me to tread down the path of talking about military action - I'm not going to do that.

"Everybody expresses their views, their stance, in their own way. The way that I choose to express it is that it's not anybody's intention to take the course of military action.

"That I think is simple and straightforward and clear."

Last night the US dismissed a letter from Iran's leader, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, apparently offering talks on various global issues, saying it proposed nothing new.

Britain and France, backed by the US, have proposed a formal Security Council resolution demanding that Tehran suspend uranium enrichment, and insist it must be under chapter seven of the UN charter to make it legally binding.

But Russia and China are wary, fearing it could lead to a re-run of the Iraq crisis.

"The discussions we have had this evening, we have not - and this was said explicitly from the beginning - we have not been negotiating texts, we have been discussing basic issues, the background strategy," Mrs Beckett said.

She added that sanctions might be needed to make Iran comply.

"No one wants to apply sanctions if it's not necessary but what everybody wants is to get Iran to recognise that the international community is serious in its insistence that we cannot continue with the assumption that Iran can just continue to flout the will of the international community this way," she said.

Mrs Beckett paid tribute to Mr Straw, saying he had done a "huge amount of detailed and skilled work" on the issue.

"It's my first full day tackling what is a hugely important and difficult issue, which I suppose is characteristic for this portfolio," she said.

Earlier, Mrs Beckett and Dr Rice, who represent the first all-female US-UK foreign minister pairing, got together on their own for the first time to get to know each other.

The letter was issued as foreign ministers met in New York for talks on the Iranian nuclear crisis.

But after three hours, the ministers failed to agree on a unified position on how to tackle the problem of Iran's atomic programme.

Iraq 'lies'

The letter - thought to be the first from an Iranian president to a US leader since Iran's 1979 revolution - sparked intense interest, coming at a time of acutely tense relations between Washington and Tehran.

The 18-page document has not yet been made public, but according to leaks, Mr Ahmadinejad spoke of the invasion of Iraq, a US cover-up over the 11 September 2001 attacks, the issue of Israel's right to exist and the role of religion in the world.

"On the pretext of the existence of WMDs [weapons of mass destruction], this great tragedy [the US invasion of Iraq] came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country.

"Lies were told in the Iraqi matter," Reuters news agency quoted the letter as saying. "What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to," Mr Ahmadinejad is quoted as saying.

The president also questioned the creation of Israel, asking "how can this phenomenon be rationalised or explained?", Reuters reported.

In an apparent allusion to Iran's nuclear programme, Mr Ahmadinejad is quoted by the Associated Press as asking: "Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a 'threat to the Zionist [Israel] regime'? Is not scientific R&D [research and development] one of the basic rights of nations?"

In another part of the letter, Mr Ahmadinejad suggests Washington has concealed elements of the truth about the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Reuters reports.

"Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities?" he asks.

The president ends the letter by appealing to Mr Bush to return to religion.

"We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point - that is the Almighty God.

"My question for you is, 'Do you not want to join them?'"

Divisions exposed

Washington swiftly dismissed the letter as a ploy, saying it contributed nothing towards helping resolve the stand-off over Iran's nuclear programme.

"This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything of the sort," Ms Rice told AP.

"It isn't addressing the issues that we're dealing with in a concrete way."

Hours after the letter was sent, Ms Rice held an inconclusive meeting with her UN Security Council counterparts and the German foreign minister on what action to take over Iran.

BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says that far from drawing the key powers at the UN towards agreement on how to confront Iran, the meeting seems to have exposed the scale of division.

The UK's newly-appointed foreign minister, Margaret Beckett, acknowledged the meeting had been important but difficult.

She refused to repeat her predecessor Jack Straw's insistence that military action against Iran was inconceivable.

Mrs Beckett said she preferred to make clear that no-one was discussing military action. This language, our correspondent says, was far more welcome to the Americans.

After the meeting, an unnamed senior US state department official said prospects for an agreement this week on a UN Security Council resolution were "not substantially good".

However, the official said the US was "very satisfied and confident" at this stage.

Germany's Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned against starting a process which could not be stopped.

"We need to make sure we don't start something we cannot stop and which could get out of control afterwards," Mr Steinmeier was quoted as telling German ZDF television.

Mr Steinmeier said "five or six questions" needed to be resolved before a final resolution could be agreed upon.

Washington has pushed for any resolution to be adopted under the terms of Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.

These are binding on all UN members, but do not automatically lead to sanctions or military action. Further decisions would be needed for such measures.

But China and Russia have resisted such a move, fearing it could lead to a new war.

Peres's vehement expressions came the same day that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to US President George W. Bush proposing "new solutions" to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian leader to an American president in 27 years, Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham said Monday.

In the letter, Ahmadinejad proposes "new solutions for getting out of international problems and current fragile situation of the world," Elham said.

Peres did not say who should act against Iran if it continues with its nuclear program, but implied military action should be led by the United States, pointing to the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israeli officials have indicated that Israel would join any international operation against Iran.

Peres urged China and Russia to join Western efforts to impose sanctions on Iran. The two countries have been reluctant to back such proposals in the UN Security Council. If all world powers are united against Iran, military action can be avoided, Peres said.

"We can prevent all of this threat, without weapons, if there will be unity," Peres said, adding that the Security Council had to act on the matter. "If the crucial moment comes and they are incapable of taking [action] or making a policy...then they endanger their existence as an important world body," he said.

Ahmadinejad's letter may also contain ideas on how to resolve the conflict over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Yet neither Teheran nor Washington provided any information regarding the content of the letter or the proposals it contains.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Monday that the Iranian president's letter to Bush could create a "new diplomatic opening," but also warned that the letter did not reflect a softening in Iran's position.

Larijani refused to give details of the letter's content, but said, "Perhaps it could lead to a new diplomatic opening. It needs to be given some time."

"There is a need to wait before disclosing the content of the letter, let it make its diplomatic way," Larijani said in an interview with Turkey's NTV television.

Larijani added, however, that the "tone of the letter is not something like softening."

He also warned against any US attack against Iran.

"If they have a little bit of a brain, they would not commit such a mistake," he said. "Iran is not Iraq. Iraq was a weak country, it did not have a legitimate government. Iran is a powerful country."

The White House announced late Monday afternoon that the letter of Iranian president Mahmuod Ahmadinejad has arrived. Spokesman Fredrick Jones said that the National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley would be the one in charge of examining the Iranian letter.

It is the first time that an Iranian president has written to his US counterpart since 1979, when the two countries broke relations after Iranian militants stormed the US Embassy and held the occupants hostage for more than a year.

The US sees the letter as no more than an attempt to influence world opinion on the eve of a United Nations Security Council new resolution regarding Iran. John Negroponte, the head of the US intelligence, said Monday that "certainly one of the hypotheses you'd have to examine is whether and in what way the timing of the dispatch of that letter is connected with trying in some manner to influence the debate before the Security Council."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will discuss the Iranian nuclear project this week with foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, known as the P5+Germany group.

The US is trying to form a broad coalition which will support a new UN resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN charter that would include the threat of sanctions against Iran if it does not comply with international demands regarding its nuclear project. China and Russia still oppose such a resolution and wish to maintain a non-sanction approach to Iran.