Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. has a contingency plan for dealing with Iran's nuclear program if diplomacy and sanctions fail, General David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in the region, said in an interview to be aired today on CNN.“It would be almost literally irresponsible if Centcom were not to have been thinking about the various ‘what ifs' and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies,' Petraeus said in comments posted on CNN's Web Site. The general, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, is head of U.S. Central Command, or Centcom.
President Barack Obama's administration launched last year a diplomatic drive to reach a deal with Iran that would allay suspicions its developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. is now considering fresh sanctions after Iran failed to accept a United Nations-brokered agreement on sending abroad most of its stockpile of low enriched uranium that would have paved the way for wider negotiations.
Petraeus declined to comment on the likelihood of a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israel, which hasn't ruled out such a step, CNN said. The U.S. commander said the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, now strengthened against attack with enhanced underground tunnels, wasn't fully protected.
“Well, they certainly can be bombed,' CNN quoted Petraeus as saying. “The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have and what capability they can bring to bear.'
Obama's administration has maintained his predecessor George W. Bush's policy of not ruling out a military strike on Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Nov. 9 in Berlin that “every option is on the table.'
Iran won't give in to Western pressure to halt its nuclear program, and isn't concerned by further UN Security Council sanctions, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday, the state-run Mehr news agency reported. Iran has ignored UN demands that it suspend uranium enrichment, which the U.S. and many of its allies suspect is part of a weapons program. Highly-enriched uranium can be used to fuel power stations or to make a nuclear warhead.
Iran will have the technology to build a nuclear weapon by early next year, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Dec. 28. Barak told a parliamentary committee that once Iran had the technological ability it could decide whether to build a nuclear weapon, for which it would have to enrich large amounts of uranium.
There is still time for diplomacy, said Petraeus. “There's a period of time, certainly, before all this might come to a head,' he said.