US has Iran strike plan, says Mulllen

WASHINGTON/TEHRAN: The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff says the US military has a plan to attack Iran, although he thinks a strike is probably a bad idea.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the highest-ranking US military officer, has often warned that a military strike on Iran would have serious and unpredictable ripple effects around the Middle East. At the same time, he says the risk of Iran developing a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.

Mullen would not say which risk he thinks is worse. But he tells NBC television’s “Meet The Press” that a military strike remains an option if need be.

And he says that, should it come to that, the military has a plan at hand. He didn’t elaborate.

Meanwhile, Iran reiterated on Sunday that three Americans jailed a year ago should stand trial on charges of illegally crossing the country’s borders.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Iran is also considering other possible charges against Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal including intentionally acting against Iranian security, according to a state media report. There has been no indication from Iran so far that formal charges against the three have been filed.

The Americans’ families and the US government say the three are innocent and accidentally crossed Iran’s border while hiking in northern Iraq.

“The three American citizens have been detained for illegal entry to Iranian territory,” Mehmanparast said, according to the website of the state broadcasting company.

“So the violation of law is obvious and they should be answerable before the law like any other individual.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in the past proposed swapping the three for Iranians he says are jailed in the US, raising fears that the Americans are being held as bargaining chips.

But in his latest remarks, Mehmanparast denied their case was related to Iranians allegedly held in the US Iran claims 11 of its citizens are held in US jails.

“Their case is merely a judicial issue,” said Mehmanparast in response to protests in several cities around the world over the weekend to demand the release of the three. Mehmanparast said the three American prisoners, whom Iran has alleged in the past were spies for the United States, have been offered support from the Swiss Embassy. The US broke off ties with Iran after the 1979

revolution, and Switzerland handles US interests in Iran.

Shourd, Bauer and Fattal met as students at the University of California at Berkeley. Last summer, Bauer, 28, a freelance journalist, and Shourd, 31, an English teacher, were living in Damascus, Syria. Bauer had just finished a magazine assignment, and Shourd was planning to learn Arabic.

Fattal, 28, had been overseas as a teaching assistant with the International Honors Program since January 2009. During his visit to Damascus, the three decided to take a hiking trip in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, according to their families. That is where they were seized by Iranian authorities, who accuse them of illegally crossing their border.

President Barack Obama marked the first anniversary of the jailing of three Americans over the weekend by reiterating that they are guilty of nothing, have never worked for the US government and never had any quarrel with the Iranian government.

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