US Vice President Dick Cheney vowed the United States would "do everything" it can to deprive Iran of nuclear weapons, and refused to rule out military action in a US television interview Friday.

"We haven't taken any options off the table," Cheney said in an interview with the US ABC News network from Australia, where he is traveling.

"A nuclear-armed Iran is not a very pleasant prospect for anybody to think about," Cheney said. "We need to continue to do everything we can to make sure they don't achieve that objective."

Cheney was speaking a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report saying that Iran had not halted, and in fact had expanded, its uranium enrichment program, defying a UN Security Council demand to stop by this week.

The UN nuclear watchdog's report brought new calls for tough UN sanctions on Tehran, and the six major powers dealing with Iran's suspected push to develop nuclear weapons will meet in London on Monday to mull their response to Iran's reticence, the US State Department said Thursday.

The United States, France and Britain called Thursday for tougher Security Council sanctions on Tehran, while Germany, China and Russia have taken softer stances ahead of the meeting.

"We hope we can solve the problem diplomatically," Cheney told ABC Friday. President George W. Bush "has indicated he wants to do everything he can to resolve it diplomatically. That's why we're working with the (European Union) and going through the United Nations with sanctions.

"But the president has also made it clear that we haven't taken any options off the table," he said.

When pressed about what he meant, Cheney said: "I'm not going beyond where I am. As we've said, we're doing everything we can do resolve it diplomatically. We haven't taken any options off the table."

Bush, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and other US officials have insisted that the United States is not planning to go to war with Iran.

But worries about US military action against Tehran have increased as the Pentagon has deployed two aircraft carrier groups in the Gulf region off Iran's southwest coast, the highest concentration of US naval firepower there since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The United States has also recently accused Iranian forces of supporting attacks on US troops in Iraq, though not openly pointing the finger at the Iranian government as behind the activity.

Reports elsewhere, however, claim that the US has contingency plans for a military attack on Iran. The London Times reported earlier Friday that senior British government officials fear Bush will launch an attack on Iran before his final term in office ends in a little less than two years.

They fear that Bush will seek to "settle the Iranian question through military means," the daily reported, quoting unidentified senior British government sources.

"He (Bush) will not want to leave it unresolved for his successor," one of the sources told The Times.

A day earlier British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted on BBC Radio that there is "no planning" under way for an attack on Iran, adding that he knew of "nobody" in Washington who was planning an invasion either.

"You can't absolutely predict every set of circumstances that comes about but sitting here now talking to you, I can tell you Iran is not Iraq," Blair said.