U.S. CENTCOM prepares for war with Iran

    U.S. Central Command has been preparing for the prospect of an American-led war against Iran.

    Officials stressed that Centcom has not received orders to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. But they said the command, which covers an area of 27 countries from North Africa to Central Asia, was preparing to respond quickly to any contingency in the region.

    "I remain persuaded that we would be able to do anything that our nation asks us to do," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, director of strategic policy and planning at Centcom, said. "And any nation that somehow miscalculates in that regard is making a tremendous mistake."

    Kimmitt told Arab journalists in a briefing in London that the United States remains committed to resolving the crisis with Iran through diplomacy. But he said Centcom was studying a range of scenarios, including the prospect of an Iranian-sponsored Islamic insurgency campaign in wake of a U.S. military confrontation with Teheran.


Meanwhile, IRAN MADMAN RAVES:ISRAEL DOOMED

    The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel and said yesterday that it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it had successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

    President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

    "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians.

    "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

    Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."