MORE ON NIE REPORT

Britain: Iran "Hoodwinked" CIA Over Nuclear Plans - Tim Shipman, Philip Sherwell and Carolynne Wheeler
British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons program, as a U.S. intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran. The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.

The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA. The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear program in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that U.S. spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programs did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time. A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of U.S. intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defense chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons. (Telegraph-UK)

Israel Says Iran Could Have Nuclear Bomb by 2010 - Ari Rabinovitch (Reuters/Washington Post)
Israel believes Iran will have the resources to create a nuclear weapon by 2010 despite a U.S. intelligence report that it was not building an atomic bomb, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert said on Sunday.

"According to the (NIE) report, there was a nuclear weapons program until 2003, but there is no explanation where it disappeared," Olmert said at a cabinet meeting.

Olmert said Israel would continue seeking further sanctions against Iran, which he said would have enriched enough uranium to create a nuclear weapon by 2010.

Iran Intelligence Report: Garbage In, Garbage Out - Jeff Stein (Congressional Quarterly)
Richard Barlow, a top former CIA and Pentagon expert on Pakistan's clandestine nuclear program in the 1980s until he was hounded out of the government for telling the truth, points out that the NIE - or at least its unclassified summary - doesn't say at what stage the Iranians allegedly "halted" their weapons program in 2003.

"The entire NIE is meaningless without this being addressed," Barlow told me. "Its omission from the Key Judgments is so glaring as to be suspicious. These programs have these little 'stoppages' not that infrequently." "The reliability of the 'new intelligence,' reportedly based mainly on U.S. electronic intercepts of Iranian scientists complaining about the work stoppage, is being greatly overblown," Barlow maintains.

Just 18% Believe Iran Has Stopped Nuclear Weapons Development Program (Rasmussen Reports)
Just 18% of American voters believe that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 66% disagree and say Iran has not stopped its nuclear weapons program.

The survey also found that 67% of American voters believe that Iran remains a threat to the national security of the U.S. Only 19% disagree. 59% believe the U.S. should continue sanctions against Iran. 20% disagree. 47% believe it is very likely that Iran will develop nuclear weapons in the future and another 34% believe Iran is somewhat likely to do so. An earlier survey found that 62% believe that Iran sponsors terrorist activities against the U.S. Only 6% disagree.

Iranian dissidents: Iran did stop its weapons program in 2003 — and restarted it in 2004 (HotAir)