US plans bombing campaign

US President George W. Bush's administration is accelerating plans for a massive bombing campaign against Iran, a report in the New Yorker magazine says.

The report, written by influential investigative journalist Seymour Hersh quotes a former defense official as saying that the air strike would be sanctioned on the premise that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."

The story, which appeared in the April 17 issue of the New Yorker magazine, says that Bush views Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a "potential Adolf Hitler," and thinks Tehran needs a "regime change."

"This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war," Hersh quotes an unidentified senior Pentagon advisor on the war on terror as saying.

Without denying the report, White House military spokesman Blair Jones said "We are not going to discuss military planning," adding that the administration was trying to seek a diplomatic solution.

Hersh says that the US may employ the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon on Iran's main centrifuge in Natanz.

The Pentagon advisor said that the potential use of nuclear weapons had created serious misgivings within the military - with some officers threatening to resign if the nuclear option was not removed from evolving war plans.

"If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle," the advisor is quoted as telling The New Yorker.