(Tehran) AP Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned Wednesday that Iran has fully-capable missiles to launch at U.S. and Israeli facilities if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities in Bushehr. This includes the U.S. base in Qatar that all Persian Gulf operations are conducted from.

"The US military presence in Iraq is not enough to deter us, and actually strengthens our resolve that their forces have us in their sights. Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two."

Ali Shamkhani said that Tehran would strike the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona if Israel attacks the Islamic republic's Bushehr nuclear facility.

"If Israel fires one missile at the Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear center, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move," General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr warned.

Shamkhani warned again that Iran considers itself not bound by any commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the event of an attack, whether "real or imminent."

"The execution of such threats (to attack Iran's nuclear installations) would mean that our cooperation with the IAEA led to feeding information about our nuclear facilities to the attacking side, which (in turn) means that we would no longer be bound by any of our obligations" to the nuclear agency, he said.

Israel has been tasking their newest U.S.-supplied F-15I long-range attack fighter/bombers on intense training missions in recent weeks with their new GBU "bunker buster" munitions sold to them last month by the United States.

Known by the military designations GBU-27 or GBU-28, "bunker busters" are 2000-lb.+ munitions guided by satellites and can penetrate up to 30 feet of earth and reinforced concrete. According to Janes Defense, Israel already has converted several of their F-15I strike aircraft with these weapons and have trained in simulated strikes with them.

Sources disclose that the Israeli Defense Force will coordinate surprise aircraft strikes with elite Special Forces ground troops to neutralize the nuclear facilities.

With the latest sabre-rattling between Iran and Israel, goes both offense and defense. Iran claims to have the latest in surface-to-air missile systems in place, supplied by the Russian Almaz Central Design Bureau.

An Israeli GBU-28 being loaded on an F-15I

The Triumf S-400 , also known as the S-300PMU3, is a next-generation version of air defense and theater anti-missile weapon designed as an evolution of the S-300PMU [SA-10] family. This new system is intended to detect and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 250 miles.

On the defense (or counter-offense) is the Israeli Arrow ABM system, which vastly outperforms the U.S. Patriot system for intercepting missiles, even in the exo-atmospheric mid-flight stage.

Iran is known to have mid-atomic fission-operational nuclear-capable missiles, which are accurate enough with the Shahab-3 rocket system to hit both cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and Western Europe, including London. When Iran completes construction and becomes operational with their Bushehr Nuclear Facility with delivery of high-grade uranium fuel from Russia in early 2005, they will be able to produce up to 2 hydrogen fusion warheads similar to the U.S. W88 warheads within 6 to 9 months. Warhead manufacturing capability will be estimated at one 250 kiloton (.25 MT) weapon per 3 weeks.

Who fires first ends up being a different matter. If Israel launches an air strike at Bushehr and destroys it, Iran will reflexively launch their missiles at Israel. Whether or not Israel's Arrow interceptor missiles can destroy them may be moot. A launch of Shahab-3 nuclear missiles at Israel will probably trigger Jericho-2 nuclear missiles to be launched at Tehran, Iran.

At some point of the exchange, it is highly probable that nuclear missiles will detonate in the Middle East, and all bets are off at that point.

Could Israel's nuclear assets survive a pre-emptive strike?