US Vice President Dick Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and perhaps other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out, Newsweek magazine quoted David Wurmser, who had served since 2003 as Cheney's Middle East adviser, on Monday. According to the magazine, Wurmster said that Cheney was considering the idea because the likely Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran. The magazine was attributing the veracity of the claims to two unnamed "knowledgeable sources."