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The nuclear power plant in Bushehr, south of Tehran, is on the US target list, according to the BBC.(Reuters)
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WASHINGTON — Despite Whitehouse’s repeated denial of any imminent attack on Iran, military planners of the US wartime administration's have already completed the attack plan and selected their targets within the Islamic republic, the BBC has revealed.
The Whitehouse has a fallback plan in the event of sanctions not persuading Iran to call of its nuclear enrichment, the BBC said on its website Tuesday, February 20, citing US diplomatic sources.
The attack will extend beyond the controversial nuclear sites and includes most of Iran’s military infrastructure.
The Iranian air and naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centers are all on the target list prepared by senior officials at Central Command in Florida, the sources, which requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.
The list will also include Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the nuclear facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr.
Long range bombers would be used to drop the so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, buried some 25 meters underground.
As the war drums get louder, another American aircraft carrier arrived in Middle Eastern waters on Tuesday in a response to the US show of power in the region, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Iran has also launched the largest war games in almost a year Monday, February 19, simulating an air strike against the Islamic republic.
The US has recently been upping the ante against Tehran, restoring to the same aggressive rhetoric that preceded the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
President George W. Bush has also beefed up the US military presence in the Gulf to its highest level since the Iraq war.
Triggers
The BBC report said that the trigger for any US attack on Iran includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
Alternatively, a high-casualty attack on US forces in Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.
The Washington Post has revealed that Bush authorized a "kill or capture" policy of Iranian agents in Iraq in an effort to weaken Iran's growing influence in the region and push Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.
Tehran has repeatedly said its nuclear program is peaceful and defends its right to enter the peaceful nuclear club in accordance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The BBC's report came as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, expected that Iran may be able to enrich uranium on a mass scale in just six months.
"It could be six months, it could be a year," ElBaradei said in an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday.
However, the IAEA chief, who met Tuesday Iran's nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Vienna, said that Iran could still be 10 years away from the capacity to build a nuclear bomb.
The UN Security Council has voted unanimously on December 23 to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology.
The Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February, or face further sanctions.
Speculations over the US attack have highlighted a widening rift between the US and European allies over how to deal with Iran.
A coalition of 17 independent British think tanks and faith organizations has warned earlier this month that any military adventure against Iran would unleash disastrous consequences for the Middle East and the wider world.
Fearing another intractable war like the one raging in Iraq, Republican and Democratic lawmakers on January 18 tabled a House draft resolution, demanding Bush win approval from Congress before using military force against Iran.
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