U.S. military chief in Israel, discusses Iran

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - The Bush administration's top military commander held high-level talks in Israel on Monday after the Jewish state said it disagreed with U.S. intelligence findings that Iran had shelved a nuclear weapons program.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen met Defence Minister Ehud Barak and heard briefings from Israel's intelligence services, which argue that Iran is working on a bomb and could have it by 2010, Israeli military sources said.

"The discussion was centered on the mutual challenge that Israel and the United States, indeed the entire Middle East, face right now, and the shared recognition that there remains a potential for Iran to develop nuclear weapons and to threaten its neighbors," Mullen's spokesman, Captain John Kirby, said.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), published last week, said Iran's nuclear weapons program had been on hold since 2003 though its uranium enrichment facilities might produce enough fissile material for bombs in the next decade.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert criticized the report on Sunday and said Israel stood by its own intelligence assessment that Iran could be just two years away from having enough highly enriched uranium to make warheads for its long-range missiles.

Israel, which is thought to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, says a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its existence. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it is enriching uranium only for use in generating electricity.

The Pentagon has played down the NIE findings.

"It's important to remember that the NIE was an independent assessment," Kirby said. "He (Mullen) also is mindful that the report made it clear that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program (and) that they are still enriching uranium."

Kirby described Mullen's discussions with the Israelis as "productive and candid" but declined to give further details.

Barak's office said in a statement that he and Mullen had gone over a range of regional issues including a joint Israeli-U.S. effort to develop a multi-tier missile defence system.

U.S. President George W. Bush has called for international sanctions to curb Iran's uranium enrichment drive but, like Olmert, has not ruled out military action as a last resort.

Analysts have said the NIE report, which reversed previous U.S. assessments, makes a U.S. attack on Iran much less likely.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Caroline Drees)