Admiral William Fallon, former head of U.S. Central Command, warns that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would take weeks, and would only set Tehran back a few years • IAEA inspectors in talks with Iran for second day over disputed nuclear program.
A former U.S. military commander warned on Wednesday that
a U.S. military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would take weeks to
execute, and would likely only delay Iran's development of nuclear weapons by a
few years rather than preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear capability,
Agence France-Presse has reported.
Admiral William Fallon, the former head of the U.S.
Central Command (which covers the Middle East) said that Iran was a big concern
for the U.S. and for Israel, but voiced hope that the nuclear issue could be
resolved through diplomatic efforts.
"If the U.S. were to put a full-fledged strike campaign in
there, that would probably take several weeks, it could put this program back
for several years," AFP quoted Fallon as saying at the American Security
Project.
Iran's suspected nuclear facilities are not a "pinpoint
target," but are instead dispersed and largely underground, he said.
"The bottom line is, it's not going to be a one-time shot.
It's not going to be like '81 or even 2007," Fallon said, referring to reported
Israeli strikes on an Iraqi nuclear reactor and Syrian nuclear facility
respectively. According to Fallon, bombing Iran's current facilities would take
weeks.
Meanwhile, senior U.N. nuclear inspectors continued talks
with Iran for a second day on Thursday, hoping to reach a long-sought agreement
to unblock an investigation into suspected weapons research in the Islamic
state.
It was not clear whether the extension of the meeting in
Tehran meant that headway had been made toward nailing down a framework deal
giving the U.N. nuclear watchdog access to sites, officials and documents for
its long-stalled inquiry.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's first priority
was to visit the Parchin military base southeast of Tehran, where it suspected
explosives tests relevant for production of nuclear weapons that may have taken
place, perhaps a decade ago, accusations that Tehran has denied.
Iran has denied Western accusations that it is seeking to
develop a weapons capability, saying its nuclear program is aimed only at power
generation.
The Vienna-based IAEA and Iran separately announced the
continuation of their discussions that began on Wednesday. They gave no
details.
The IAEA, whose mission is to prevent the spread of
nuclear weapons, has been trying for a year to negotiate a so-called structured
approach with Tehran on how to conduct the investigation.
"The continuation of the discussions ... has been planned
for Thursday," the official IRNA news agency quoted a statement issued by Iran's
supreme national security council as saying.
The Iranian report added, without giving details: "The
IAEA negotiating team which arrived in Tehran on Tuesday night, held several
rounds (of talks) with the Iranian team today."
In Vienna, IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said: "The talks
will continue on Thursday."
World powers were monitoring the IAEA-Iran talks for any
signs as to whether Tehran, facing intensifying sanctions pressure, may be
prepared to finally start tackling mounting international concerns about its
nuclear activity.
The six powers — the United States, France, Germany,
China, Russia and Britain — and Iran may resume their separate negotiations
later in January to try to reach a broader diplomatic settlement. They last met
in June.
After their previous meeting, in mid-December, both Iran
and the IAEA said progress was made and the U.N. agency said it expected to
finalize the deal in this week's talks. But Western diplomats later said some
key sticking points remained.
Western diplomats have said that Iran has worked for the
past year to remove any incriminating evidence from Parchin, but IAEA chief
Yukiya Amano said late last year a visit would still be useful.
Before leaving Vienna, IAEA Deputy Director General Herman
Nackaerts said his team was ready to visit Parchin immediately if access were
granted.
Tehran said a framework accord with the IAEA should be
reached before any visit to Parchin is allowed. It said the site is a
conventional military facility and has dismissed accusations of ongoing
"sanitization" there.
Western diplomats voiced skepticism in the run-up to
Wednesday's talks that a breakthrough was in the offing. Even if there were a
deal, they said, it would be unclear how it would be implemented in
practice.
But analysts and diplomats still saw a window of
opportunity for world powers to make a renewed diplomatic push to find an
overall negotiated solution to the dispute after U.S. President Barack Obama won
re-election in November.
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