TEHRAN, 19 January 2005 — Iran has the military might to deter attacks against it, its defense minister said in remarks published yesterday, one day after US President George W. Bush said he would not rule out military action against Iran.

Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said the Islamic Republic, which has seen US forces topple regimes in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq in the last three years, did not fear attack.

“We are able to say that we have strength such that no country can attack us because they do not have precise information about our military capabilities due to our ability to implement flexible strategies,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Shamkhani as saying.

“We can claim that we have rapidly produced equipment that has resulted in the greatest deterrent,” he said, without elaborating.

Bush said on Monday that Washington would not rule out military action against Iran if it was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program.

His comments followed an article in the New Yorker magazine on Sunday which said US commando units were conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify hidden nuclear and chemical sites for possible future strikes.

Iran denies its nuclear facilities are to be used to make nuclear weapons and Pentagon officials have rubbished the New Yorker report.

Iranian officials have given no public reaction to the New Yorker article which suggested Pentagon officials were eager to tackle Iran in the second term of the Bush administration.

Mehr news agency, which analysts say has close ties to the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an editorial entitled “Futile espionage” ridiculed US attempts to destabilize Iran since the 1979 revolution.

“The United States is well aware that Iran has strongly withstood US pressure for over 25 years ... Today, the Islamic Republic has acquired massive military might, the dimensions of which still remain unknown, and is prepared to attack any intruder with a fearsome rain of fire and death,” it said.

“The US and Israel know that they can never militarily challenge Iran, since attacking the Islamic Republic would be biting off more than they could chew and would only choke them if they attempted it,” it added.

Meanwhile, UN nuclear inspectors want to return to the Parchin military site in Iran, after a first inspection last week of the facility where Washington charges Tehran is simulating testing of atomic weapons, a diplomat said yesterday.

“The International Atomic Energy Agency plans to go back to Parchin,” the diplomat close to the Vienna-base IAEA told AFP, saying Iran had not yet granted permission for a second visit. The diplomat, who asked not to be named, said IAEA inspectors wanted to go to another part of the sprawling Parchin complex, which they had first visited last Thursday after months of asking Iran for access.

But the diplomat said this was a routine part of a “process” and that “there is nothing like a fire.”

“There are a number of things the IAEA wants to clarify according to its plans,” the diplomat said.

Washington has voiced concern the Iranians may be testing high-explosive charges with an inert core of depleted uranium at Parchin, 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran, as a sort of dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work.

Tehran has strongly denied carrying out any nuclear-related work at the site, which has buildings housing testing equipment, flanked by bunkers where explosions are carried out.