Iran says it has military might to deter attack

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran has the military might to deter attacks against it, Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said, after President Bush said he would not rule out military force against Iran over its nuclear program.

"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 recently.

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

In October, Iran announced successful trials of its Shahab-3 ballistic missile with a range of 1,250 miles, putting parts of Europe, as well as Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, within reach.

Bush said Washington would not rule out military action against Iran - which he has labeled as part of an "axis of evil" alongside Iraq and North Korea - if it was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Washington accuses Tehran of trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is aimed solely at producing electricity.

The United States has toppled regimes in Iran's neighbors Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

"Iran has no fear of foreign enemies' threats... as they are very well aware that the Islamic Republic is not a place for adventurism," the ISNA student news agency quoted influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as saying.

Bush's comments followed an article in the New Yorker magazine recently which said U.S. commando units were conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify hidden nuclear and chemical sites for possible strikes.

Pentagon officials have said the New Yorker report was "riddled with errors."