Air Strikes On Iran Could Backfire - Report

[Purveyor]

LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) - Military strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear ambitions could backfire, increasing Tehran's determination to obtain atomic weapons and bolstering hostility towards the West, a report said on Monday.

---

"With inadequate intelligence, it is unlikely it would be possible to identify and subsequently destroy the number of targets needed to set back Iran's nuclear programme for a significant period," said the report.

"In the aftermath of a military strike, if Iran devoted maximum effort and resources to building one nuclear bomb, it could achieve this in a relatively short amount of time."

Such a weapon would then be wielded in "an environment of incalculably greater hostility," said the report, which was published by the Oxford Research Group and written by Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist and weapons expert.

---

BLIX BACKS REPORT

Iran is likely to have built secret facilities underground as well as "false targets" designed to look like nuclear sites and act as decoys, Barnaby's report said.

---END OF EXCERPT---

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0366765.htm