The resignation of the commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan does not signal a policy change on Iran, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says.

Admiral William Fallon said on Tuesday he was stepping down because of public perceptions of a rift with Mr Bush.

A recent article said Adm Fallon opposed military strikes against Iran.

The Pentagon also denied claims by leading Democrats that the resignation was a sign of White House attempts to stifle dissent.

The affair centres on an article in the April edition of Esquire magazine which described the admiral as "the strongest man standing between the Bush administration and a war with Iran".

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But Mr Gates said there were no significant differences between the views of Adm Fallon and the Bush administration's policy on Iran.

He said the idea, suggested in the article, that Adm Fallon's departure would indicate that the US was planning to go to war with Iran was "ridiculous".

Adm Fallon said he did not believe there had "ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy", and was quoted by the Washington Post as describing the article as "poison-pen stuff".

But Esquire's editor-in-chief, David Granger, said the magazine stood "four-square behind the story".

He said Adm Fallon's resignation and its aftermath bore out the magazine's "reporting on the critical issue of tensions between US Central Command and the White House over Iran policy".

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