JACK STRAW has drawn up a dossier putting the case against a military attack on Iran amid fears that President George W Bush’s administration may seek Britain’s backing for a new conflict.

Straw and his officials fear that hawks in Washington will talk the American president into a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, just as they persuaded him to go to war in Iraq.

The foreign secretary has produced a 200-page dossier that rules out military action and makes the case for a “negotiated solution” to curbing the ayatollahs’ nuclear ambitions amid increasingly bellicose noises from Washington.

He will press home the point at a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, the incoming secretary of state, at a meeting in Washington tomorrow.

The document says a peaceful solution led by Britain, France and Germany is “in the best interests of Iran and the international community”. It refers to “safeguarding Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology”.

The dossier, entitled Iran’s Nuclear Programme, was quietly issued in the Commons on the eve of Bush’s inauguration last week for fear of provoking a public rift with Washington — although privately tensions are running high between the two nations.

The approach contrasts with the government’s two Iraq dossiers, which were trumpeted to make the case for war.

US agents have tried to locate suspected nuclear sites in Iran, according to a report last week by Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who broke the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal.

British officials are increasingly concerned that months of patient European-led diplomacy may explode in a torrent of bunker-busting attacks by US stealth bombers. There is also concern in London that the Pentagon may be ordered to act on the basis of its flawed intelligence, while British agents on the ground believe Iran is complying with nuclear inspectors.

Fears in London of an attack were fuelled when Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, said that Iran was “top of the list” as a trouble spot for the administration. Rice said it was an “outpost of tyranny”.

The message that the British government wants no part in another war in the Middle East will be reinforced by Tony Blair when he meets Bush in Brussels next month and at an Anglo-American summit in Washington after the British general election, which is expected in May.

The foreign secretary’s dossier sets out in detail the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since Iran signed up to an agreement 15 months ago.

Despite his confidence in the negotiations, which have been frustrated by setbacks, IAEA minutes published in his dossier show that the agency believes that all declared nuclear material has been accounted for.

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