The plan, to cut technical aid projects based on a review by International Atomic Energy Agency experts, must be approved at a March 5-9 meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors.

But members ranging from Iran's arch-foe the United States to its close ally Cuba raised no objections when IAEA aides, at a briefing this week, explained their criteria for shutting down some projects while continuing others, diplomats present said.

"No one is totally satisfied. But the review is as balanced as can be under the circumstances. I see no one wanting to pick a fight when the board convenes," a senior diplomat from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which includes Iran, told Reuters.

This suggested the board may ratify the review by consensus rather than amend and vote on it.

Iran was hit with UN sanctions over its failure to prove to the IAEA that its efforts to enrich uranium are geared only toward generating electricity as it maintains. Western powers suspect Iran wants to produce fuel suitable for atom bombs.

The December 23 resolution bans transfers of sensitive nuclear materials and expertise to Iran as well as IAEA technical aid -- traditionally given to bolster peaceful uses of nuclear energy -- if it has any possible use in yielding atomic fuel.

Of the 55 IAEA aid projects in Iran, 10 were frozen and 12 others restricted to comply with the sanctions.

"We are pleased that the IAEA has decided to cut technical assistance to 22 projects," Gregory Schulte, US ambassador to the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog, said after the briefing.

"We are still studying the report. But our preliminary analysis is that the IAEA approach meets the requirements of UN Security Council resolution," he said in a statement.

Before the IAEA Secretariat issued its review on February 9, diplomats said the United States and allies like France and Australia favoured more sweeping cuts of aid for Iran.

NAM board members argued for smaller cuts. They noted there is no hard evidence Iran is diverting IAEA resources to military ends and fear a precedent jeopardising aid for nuclear energy.

"The general feeling was we should trust the Secretariat's judgment and not micro-manage," said ambassador Ernest Petric of Slovenia, chairman of the IAEA's policymaking board.

Iranian ambassador Aliasghar Soltanieh criticized the aid decision as unjust, diplomats said.

IAEA projects in Iran had fostered development of radio-pharmaceuticals and isotopes for medical care and agriculture, radioactive waste management, nuclear power planning and safety regulations, and training courses.

Projects stopped under the IAEA review related mainly to strategic nuclear power planning and generation of nuclear fuel.

The March IAEA board meeting will also consider two reports by agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei -- one on Iran likely to find it has defied a February 21 Security Council deadline for suspending enrichment, which could provoke broader sanctions, the other on prospects for returning IAEA inspectors to North Korea after a six-power pact this week to halt its nuclear bomb programme.

Meanwhile, the United States is not looking for an excuse to go to war with Iran, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday, seeking to dispel suspicions aroused by US charges of Iranian meddling in Iraq.

Gates said US assertions that the Qods Force, an elite branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is training Iraqi extremists and supplying them with armour piercing bombs and other weapons are based on "hard fact."

But he said, "For the umpteenth time, we are not looking for an excuse to go to war with Iran. We are not planning a war with Iran."

"What we are trying to do is inside Iraq disrupt the networks that put these weapons in the hands of those who kill our troops. That's it," he said.

Questions about the US evidence arose after a US military briefing in Baghdad in which an anonymous official said that support for attacks on US forces had been sanctioned at the "highest levels" of the Iranian regime.

Since then senior administration officials, from President George W Bush on down, have backed away from the claim while trying to allay suspicions that it was using unverified intelligence to prepare the ground for a strike on Iran.

"We're sensitive to that scepticism," said Gates.