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The US military has constructed four advanced bases 20 miles from Iraq’s border with Iran, a senior Iraqi police officer has announced.

The bases, equipped with missile launch pads, have been set up over the past four months on the Iraq-Iran border; Iraqi al-Noor newspaper quoted the official as saying.

He added that one of the bases has been located 30 km (20 miles) from the first border town with Iran and houses remote-controlled launching pads as well as radar systems similar to ones used in Kuwait during the first Persian Gulf war.

“The bases do not serve military intentions and its staff would not be military personnel.”

According to the official, the bases are only precautionary measures in case of a military strike against Israel by Iran.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran’s nuclear complex.

CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn’t want to wait for a new administration.

“The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize,” Oren said. “Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-à-vis Iran.”

Israel’s message is simple: If you don’t, we will. Israel held a dress rehearsal for a strike earlier this month, but military analysts say Israel can not do it alone.

“Keep in mind that Israel does not have strategic bombers,” Oren said. “The Israeli Air Force is not the American Air Force. Israel can not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.”

Despite constant talk of war, U.S. officials have tried to reach out to the Iranian people in an attempt to get past the animosity between Washington and Tehran.

But Iranian officials have also been on a diplomatic offensive, reaching out to ordinary people in the Middle East as well as, more modestly, to Americans.

Known for his good looks, polite manners and kindly attitude toward the media, Iran’s silver-haired foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammed Ali Hosseini has emerged as a frequent public face on his government’s policies.

In a lengthy interview in his office Wednesday, he described Americans as a peace-loving people who “hate violence” and are suffering because of the mistakes of their leaders. He said he believed economic pressures, the military entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American public opinion would prevent war from breaking out between Iran and the United States. “The U.S. and the Zionist regime, thanks to the increasing economic, political, security and military crises in which they are stuck, are not logically in a position to tolerate the expenses of another massive and far-reaching crisis,” Hosseini said.

He continued:

Public opinion in the world will not permit [President] Bush to exacerbate the pains and tragedies already inflicted on the nations of the region and the American people. Nowadays, the polling surveys carried out among U.S. elites, thinkers and, by and large, the American people, show they hate violence, further battles and anarchy. The surveys indicate that the Americans are seeking genuine peace, stability and security.

But he warned:

If there is a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it will be out of control and with unpredictable consequences. Thus, anyone with minimum rationality and political logic does not dare to step on this path.

Hosseini, 47, is a physicist by training and a career diplomat. A native of Tehran, he studied in India before joining Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 20 years ago. He’s a family man, with a wife and three children. He sat down for an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times about Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. relations and turmoil in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, which have became contested terrain in the Cold War between Washington and Tehran.