U.N. Official Warns Against Attack On Iran

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency is warning that any attack on Iran could turn the Mideast into a "ball of fire."

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei spoke in an interview aired today on Al-Arabiya television, a day after reports emerged of a large-scale military exercise by Israel.

U.S. officials say they think the Israeli exercises were meant to warn Iran of Israel's abilities to hit its nuclear sites.

ElBaradei also warned that he will resign as chief of the UN nuclear agency if Iran is attacked by any country.

He says a military strike against Iran now would make him unable to continue his work.

"The reports this week of Israeli military maneuvers, which took place in early June, provoked the IAEA warning," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Pamela Falk, who is based at the U.N., "because atomic energy chief ElBaradei has been pleading with Iran to accept a new package of incentives before another round of sanctions would be imposed."

"The problem in the region is that, as time passes and the clock is ticking on Iran's uranium enrichment program, there is a fear that Israel will act, as it did in Syria last year, to attack at least one of Iran's nuclear facilities," said Falk, who was in Saudi Arabia earlier this week.

"Israel is evidently the most threatened by the last IAEA report, which concluded that there are unanswered questions about Iran's ability to eventually develop nuclear weapons," said Falk, "so it is elBaradei himself who produced the report that is making Israel nervous."

Meanwhile, Iran is reiterating its decision to continue enriching uranium, calling Western pressure to suspend the work "illogical."

The statement by a government spokesman comes as Europe waits for Iran's formal answer to an international package of incentives designed to rein in its nuclear program.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted Iranian spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham on Saturday as saying that his country will respond to the package at a convenient time.

The package would give Tehran economic incentives, and the chance to develop alternate light-water reactors, in return for dropping the uranium enrichment.