NEW YORK, Nov 20: Invading Iran "would be a catastrophic mistake", The New York Times warned on Saturday in an editorial, which deemed recent administration statements reminiscent of statements made in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

"We hope president Bush has learned enough from the Iraq adventure to understand the dangers of using flawed intelligence to create a false sense of urgency about a national security threat," the daily said.

"Invading Iran, a country of nearly 70 million people, would be a catastrophic mistake," it said.

"Stop us if you've heard this one before. The Bush administration creates a false sense of urgency about a nuclear menace from a Middle Eastern country. Hard-liners talk about that country's connections to terrorists. They portray European diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions as a feckless attempt to appease a rogue nation whose word can never be trusted anyway. Secretary of State Colin Powell makes ominous-sounding warnings about new intelligence, which turns out to be dubious," the editorial said.

The Times called it a "welcome step" that Iran committed to freezing its nuclear enrichment activities after German, British and French diplomatic work.

"Iran has long been a target of the hawks in the administration, who are undoubtedly feeling their oats after the election," the Times said.

"That is how president Bush rushed the country into an unnecessary conflict with Iraq in his first term, and we have been seeing alarming signs of that approach all week on Iran" and "there is no military solution here," the daily said.

The United States has no intention to change Iran's government and it has no plans to invade the country.

"We are not getting ready to invade Iran," Powell told CNBC television's "The Wall Street Journal Report" when asked if having 140,000 troops in Iraq makes it easier to deal with Iran.

"We have no intention of regime change. That is our policy: no regime change," he said, although he added: "we don't approve of this regime.

Mr Bush, on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Santiago, said, "This is a very serious matter, the world knows it's a serious matter, and we're working together to solve this matter."

"It's very important for the Iranian government to hear that we are concerned about their desires, and we're concerned about reports that show that prior to a certain international meeting, they're willing to speed up processing of materials that could lead to a nuclear weapon," Mr Bush said.-AFP