US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was expected on Saturday to urge Gulf states to present a united front against threats from Iran, senior US officials here said, despite a US intelligence report this week that downplayed the menace it is believed to pose.

He is expected to urge Gulf Arab states to cooperate and share more security information in the face of the Iranian threat, be it nuclear or from ballistic missiles, said a senior US defence official.

Gates' speech to a regional security conference in Bahrain will come five days after the publication of the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which said that Iran halted a secret nuclear weapons programme four years ago, a conclusion at odds with the US stance of recent years.

Suspicions of Iran's nuclear activities have been a key driver of the tough US approach toward Iran and its pursuit of sanctions.

But Washington has vowed to press on with its own measures to intercept threats from Tehran, especially a missile shield with planned installations in Europe, which has angered Russia.

"Whether or not Iran has suspended its nuclear weapon program, its conventional missiles remain a threat to Europe, and we should continue to pursue missile defence together," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Friday in Bahrain..

The United States has defended plans to build anti-missile facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland as necessary to protect European allies from a potential strike by "rogue" states, especially Iran.

When asked about the NIE's impact on the missile shield plan, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "I don't believe it's had any change on missile defense, certainly nothing that I've heard, nor should it."

The NIE apparently did not come up during "very candid, very open," talks about the missile shield this week between US and Russian military leaders, said US Lieutenant General John Sattler.

The US missile shield plan has been a source of tension reminiscent of the Cold War between the United States and Russia, which views the missiles a threat to its security. But the two sides have been trying to find a compromise.

A senior US military official on Friday echoed President George W. Bush's insistence that Iran still posed a threat.

"Their behaviour has really been a problem, and to the extent that it destabilises the region, which it does, then it becomes a problem for us," Admiral William Fallon, head of US Central Command which includes the Middle East, told reporters.

"Everything they've done publicly has been a problem," he said, noting that Iran supplied weapons and other support for insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another senior American military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Gulf states' "biggest concern, as they have tried to express it to me, is more the pressure that they feel from Iran as the want-to-be big dog in this area.

"The shadow of Iran, and their increasingly outward, bellicose monologue that emanates from Tehran, is what concerns them. That's the real focal point -- pressure felt from Iran spreading its influence over this region, or trying" to do so, he said.

Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Staff, said the US military is discussing internally whether Iran poses less of a threat in light of the intelligence assessment but has made no change in its plans.

"There has been no course correction, slowdown, speedup given to us inside the Joint Staff based on the NIE," he told reporters.

Gates said in a television interview that Iran could resume a covert nuclear weapons program "at a whim or at a moment's notice."

"So I think it's very important to keep the pressure on and get Tehran to abjure a nuclear weapon in the future, and to bring their (uranium) enrichment program under control," he told Alhurra TV, a US-funded Arabic language television network.

He called for a regional "air and missile defence umbrella" to protect Gulf states.

The Pentagon also said Friday it had notified Congress of possible arms sales worth more than 10 billion dollars to oil-rich Gulf states including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to beef up their missile and air defences against Iran.

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