Writing in the New Yorker magazine, journalist Seymour M Hersh quoted former intelligence officials as saying that a special planning group had been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours.

American military and special-operations teams, it said, have escalated their activities in Iran, crossing the border from Iraq to gather intelligence and to pursue Iranian operatives.

The Administration, the article contended, was now examining a "wave of new intelligence" on Iran s weapons programmes. Current and former American officials have been quoted as saying that the intelligence, which came from Israeli agents operating in Iran, includes a claim that Iran had developed a three-stage solid-fuelled intercontinental missile capable of delivering several small warheads each with limited accuracy inside Europe.

"The validity of this human intelligence is still being debated," the report said.

A similar argument about an imminent threat posed by weapons of mass destructionand questions about the intelligence used to make that caseformed the prelude to the invasion of Iraq, the article noted and says many in Congress have greeted the claims about Iran with wariness.