Ahmadinejad scoffs at notion of raid on Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that he did not see any possibility of a war between his country and the United States or Israel.

He added that the Islamic Republic would sever the hand of any assailant before it could reach the trigger, and called the possibility of a strike against Iran "comical."

Ahmadinejad said he believed Washington and Tel Aviv have been ''focusing on propaganda and psychological war'' against Iran.

''I assure you that there won't be any war in the future,'' Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of an Islamic summit in the Malaysian capital, adding that US President George W. Bush would not launch such a strike.

"The economic, political and military situation will not lead Mr Bush to do that, everybody knows this fact," Ahmadinejad said. "The Iranian people are ready to defend their own land."

When asked if Tehran was working to prevent the outbreak of war as global concerns increase that the situation may deteriorate over Iran's pursuit of nuclear power, Ahmadinejad said that Iran was doing everything to ensure peace and security.

"This is more of a propaganda war," he said.

'Israel will collapse on its own'

The Iranian president also predicted Israel's ''regime'' would collapse without the need for any Iranian action. The Israelis ''are a complex political group, but you should know this regime will be eventually destroyed and there is no need of any measure by Iranian people,'' he said when asked to comment on whether he has called for the destruction of Israel.

However the focus of his address was the Bush administration, which Ahmadinejad charged had destroyed America's image in the world. The current US administration ''has lost its fame and the fame of America in the eyes of the other people of the world.''

He said the next government ''would need at least 30 years in order to compensate, renovate and innovate the damages done by Mr. Bush. Of course, they can never bring back to life the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine."

The Iranian leader urged Washington to heal its image by ''relying on (the) basis of justice, humanitarian

acts and respect for human beings.''

''The greatest threat in the Middle East and the whole world ... is the United States' intervention in other countries,'' Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad went on to say that the American people do not like to see hundreds of billions of their dollars wasted on the administration's "military adventures."

The Associated Press contributed to this report