Report: Iran suspended nuclear weapons program in 2003

Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003, according to an U.S. government intelligence assessment released to news organizations in Washington.

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," the unclassified summary of the secret report says, according to the Associated Press.

The wire service quotes anonymous "intelligence officials" who say that Iran is still enriching uranium and may be able to build a bomb by 2010.

Update at 12:27 p.m. ET: The White House just issued a statement about the new analysis.

"It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen," Stephen Hadley, the national security advisor, says. "But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem. The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically."

He goes on to call for greater international pressure against Tehran.

The New York Times

December 3, 2007
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program, and they come in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear program has been discussed.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

“Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,” the estimate states.

The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program. The report led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the N.I.E.’s conclusions turned out to be wrong. The estimate does say that Iran’s ultimate goal is still to develop the capability to produce nuclear weapon.

The national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes. “It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr. Hadley said. “It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen. But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”

“The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the administration has been trying to do,” Mr. Hadley said.

The new report concludes that if Iran were to end the freeze of its weapons program, it would still be at least two years before Tehran would have enough highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. But it says it is still “very unlikely” Iran could produce enough of the material by then.

Instead, the N.I.E. concludes it is more likely Iran could have a bomb by the early part to the middle of the next decade. The report states that the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this goal before 2013, “because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.”

The new assessment upends a judgment made about Iran’s nuclear capabilities in 2005. At the time, intelligence agencies assessed with “high confidence” that Iran is determined to have nuclear weapons and concluded that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program.

Since then, officials said they have obtained new information leading them to conclude that international pressure, including tough economic sanctions, had been successful in bringing about a halt to Iran’s secret program.

“We felt that we needed to scrub all the assessments and sources to make sure we weren’t misleading ourselves,” said one senior intelligence official during a telephone interview, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In a separate statement accompanying the N.I.E., Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald M. Kerr said that given the new conclusions, it was important to release the report publicly “to ensure that an accurate presentation is available.”

Text: Key Judgments of National Intelligence Estimate (pdf)

Statement by the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (pdf)

Text: White House Response

IC: Iran Stopped Nuke Program in Fall 2003
posted Monday December 3, 2007 under iran by jeffrey

Wow.

The IC says Iran suspended its clandestine weapons program in Fall 2003. (The NIE and the DDNI statement)

I can’t quite believe the IC agrees with something that Paul Kerr and I have been arguing was possible for years — that the bureaucratic consolidation undertaken in late 2003 may have choked off the clandestine program, at least for now. I mean, we were just making educated guesses.

more with links

A little background from 2005 shows that a fatwa from Ayatollah Khamenei has been in place that forbids nuclear weapons development.

In fact, Ayatollah Khamenei has stated the importance of nuclear energy for domestic purposes, as Iran's oil and gas will not last forever. Golly, a "peak oil" advocate--whaddya know?

A little more background

Of course the idiots in our own administration will tell you that the real ruler of Iran is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because he's called "President" and "president" means supreme ruler by their game rules.

I did inhale.

Zahra Hosseinian | Tehran | Dec. 4

Reuters - Iran welcomed a U.S. report on Tuesday contradicting assertions by the Bush administration that Tehran was intent on building an atomic bomb, and the Islamic Republic said it was becoming clear its plans were peaceful.

Asked about the U.S. report, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state radio: "It's natural that we welcome it when those countries who in the past have questions and ambiguities about this case ... now amend their views realistically."

"The condition of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities is becoming clear to the world."

Iran report frustrates US hawks

By Adam Brookes
BBC News, Washington

In an abrupt change of position, the US intelligence agencies now say they do not know if Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon.

The unclassified version of a new National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, released on Monday, said that Iran was "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005".

In May 2005, the intelligence community had said "with high confidence" that Iran was "determined" to build nuclear weapons.

The new NIE confirms that Iran did, indeed, have an illicit nuclear weapons programme.

But it says that programme ceased operating in 2003 and, as of mid-2007, had probably not started up again. The NIE asserts that the weapons programme was dropped because of international pressure.

It says that US intelligence estimates - with "moderate-to-high confidence" - that Iran currently does not currently have a nuclear weapon.

The NIE affirms, however, that Iran continues its efforts to enrich uranium.

The document estimates that the very earliest Iran could produce enough highly-enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon would be late 2009, but some time between 2010 and 2015 is more likely.

In an interesting note of dissent, the state department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research does not think enough HEU for a weapon could be produced until 2013.

Intelligence gaps

In all, the new NIE argues that Iran's intentions may be less threatening than US intelligence previously thought.

And it strongly suggests large gaps in the Americans' knowledge of exactly what the Iranian programme is capable of.

But the document emphasises that Iran continues to build a capacity which could be turned to nuclear weapons production in the future.

"Iranian entities are continuing to build a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so," it reads.

Iran continues to insist that its programme is for civilian purposes.

The Bush administration welcomed the NIE, even though it might be seen to contradict the administration's warnings about the gravity of the Iranian threat.

The National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the report showed that the risk of Iran's acquiring a nuclear weapon remained a "very serious problem".

Mr Hadley said that the NIE showed that the US had the "right strategy" in pressuring Iran to suspend its entire nuclear programme, while offering to negotiate.

His statements suggest that the new NIE will not engender any profound shift in policy on the part of the Bush administration, and that Washington will continue to push for a new round of UN sanctions against Iran.

Complicating factor

But Washington analysts were predicting that the intelligence community's new position would complicate the effort to bring about a new UN Security Council Resolution imposing sanctions.

Such a resolution was still within reach, they said, simply because Iran has not complied with demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

But, they said, the US will be hard put to maintain a sense of urgency following the release of the new NIE.

However, the new NIE will make it harder for proponents of military action against Iran to argue their case.

One source, who has close links to US intelligence, said that members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff continued to call for military strikes against Iran "on a daily basis".

Senior military officers and intelligence officials are understood to have grave reservations about an attack on Iran - not least because it would be unclear how a military confrontation with Iran could be brought to a conclusion.

and to all a good night! Finally, something to celebrate (for a little while at least)...

Parser-in-Chief?

Oh, for the days when the need to parse presidential language was only a matter of distinguishing different kinds of sex acts. Now it's necessary to hold the president to account for starting wars, bamboozling the country and causing untold numbers of deaths.

We appear to know now that the Iranians shuttered their nuclear weapons program in 2003. The president apparently had strong indications this was the case back as far as last summer and the intelligence became progressively more clear in the fall. And yet here he was through most of the fall escalating his rhetoric against Iran and rattling the sabers for a potential military confrontation.

Yet, as several readers have noted, when you look back at his speeches, there's evidence that the president was shifting his terms because he knew that the intelligence on which his push for war was based was likely too collapse.

If you go back to his October 17th press conference, the one where he spoke of 'World War III' he changes his wording. It's no longer the need to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb. Now it's the necessity of "preventing them from hav[ing] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

That's the tell.

That change is no accident. He wants claims that will survive the eventual revelation of this new intelligence -- while also continuing to hype the imminence of the Iranian nuclear threat that his spy chiefs are telling him likely does not exist.

--Josh Marshall

Since yesterday I have been having a problem viewing the front page of Agonist, it starts with the post below this one, 'Meet the Foxers'. The image does not show, nor does anything else below it, no Read More, or Make Comment appears, the page just ends.

I have waited, figuring others would be having this problem and it would be fixed. is it just me? If so, can anyone tell me why?

Caribdude

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1690696,00.html?imw=Y

Neither explanation is entirely accurate. The real story behind this NIE is that the Bush Administration has finally concluded Iran is a bridge too far. With Iranian-backed Shi'a groups behaving themselves, things are looking up in Iraq. In Lebanon, the anti-Syrian coalition and pro-Syrian coalition, which includes Iran's surrogate Hizballah, reportedly have settled on a compromise candidate, the army commander General Michel Suleiman. Bombing Iran now would upset the fragile balance in these two countries. Not to mention that Hizballah has threatened to shell Israel if we as much as touch a hair on Iran's head.

Bush defends Iran policy amid doubts on new U.N. sanctions
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — President Bush worked the phones Tuesday to salvage his hard-line policy toward Iran, lobbying foreign leaders for tougher economic sanctions despite a new U.S. intelligence report that concluded that the Islamic republic halted its secret nuclear weapons program four years ago.

Several U.S. officials and experts, however, said that the new National Intelligence Estimate has upended Bush's policy and erased any justification for threatening military strikes. The president will now find it difficult to persuade Russia and China — and even America's European allies — to impose new sanctions on Iran, even though it refuses to heed United Nations demands to stop enriching uranium, they said.

"A new resolution is going to be very hard to get, if not impossible," said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Bush showed no sign of backing down.

"Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," Bush insisted a day after the release of the report, which contradicted a 2005 finding that Tehran had an active nuclear weapons program. "The policy remains the same."

Asked at a news conference if he was maintaining his threat to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, Bush replied, "The best diplomacy, effective diplomacy, is one of which all options are on the table."

He said that the new intelligence finding provides a "rare opportunity for us to rally the international community" behind new sanctions and that he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been "working the phones" with foreign leaders.

The report, though, has dealt another blow to Bush's credibility — which already was low over his false claims about illicit weapons in Iraq — because he was aware of the findings when he warned on Oct. 17 that Iran's quest for nuclear weapons could ignite World War III.

Two other U.S. officials indicated that the administration could be forced to adopt a less confrontational policy to maintain a semblance of international unity on Iran. That shift could entail the United States joining European powers in talks with Tehran.

"One of the big things that has been a glaring omission (in U.S. policy) is the lack of face-to-face, even quiet, secret, negotiations," said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "It wouldn't surprise me if that were to change."

"We might get to a point where that would be true, but we're not there yet," said an administration official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

In an interview with McClatchy on Nov. 23, Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency outlined a diplomatic resolution that included U.S. acknowledgment that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, which the new NIE appeared to do. In response, Iran would comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment, said Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

"We could suspend nuclear enrichment," he said. "We did it before for two-and-a-half years."

Bush discussed the NIE in a 40-minute phone call Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been playing an increasingly high-profile role in efforts to find a diplomatic solution, including making the first visit to Iran by a Russian leader in decades.

Putin later held talks with Iran's new chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, and told him before the meeting began: "We expect that your programs in the nuclear sphere will be open, transparent and be conducted under control of the authoritative international organization."

There have been other moves of late:

Iran has released several Iranian-American detainees, the United States has freed half the Iranians it was holding in Iraq, and U.S. officials have said that Iran has reduced shipments of arms to anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq as part of an effort to stabilize its violence-torn neighbor.

Iran, which hid its nuclear activities from U.N. inspectors for 18 years, celebrated the NIE as a vindication of its claims that its program is strictly to produce low-enriched uranium for nuclear power plants.

more

Podhoretz’s ‘Dark Suspicion’: Intel Community Trying To Sabotage Bush With NIE

and don't forget Bush released the report himself to save the ME bwahahahahahaha

More on the Iran NIE
posted 7 hours ago under intelligence, iran by jeffrey

Tomorrow, the New America Foundation is going to host U.S. Iran Policy After the NIE with yours truly, Steve Clemons and Flynt Leverett

To help with coverage, friend of wonk James Acton of King’s College London is going to be making a special guest appearance here at Arms Control Wonk. You may know him from the truly awe-inspiring VERTIC report, Use of voluntary transparency measures to increase trust in states’ nuclear programmes: the case of Iran.

Here is my take, basically what I plan to say tomorrow.

more
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1723/more-on-the-iran-nie

British GCHQ eavesdropping played role in US intelligence U-turn on Iran

· Time lag as agencies checked out conversations
· Ahmadinejad basks in 'great victory' of report

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Robert Tait in Tehran
Thursday December 6, 2007
The Guardian

The US intelligence U-turn on Iran was partly based on telephone conversations in Iran intercepted by the British intelligence listening station GCHQ, according to a source in Washington speaking on a basis of anonymity.

In an updated assessment of Iran published on Monday, the US intelligence agencies concluded that the country had ceased work on a nuclear weapons programme four years ago, in contrast with its assessment in 2005 that the country was pushing ahead with its weapons programme.

Article continues
George Bush said on Tuesday that the decision to change the assessment was based on "a great discovery". Diplomatic and official sources in the US said this was mainly based on human intelligence, almost certainly a major defector, but that intercepts were also a factor.

According to the source, there was a lengthy time-lag between the conversations being intercepted by GCHQ and the US intelligence agencies checking out whether they were genuine or whether those involved knew they were being listened to and put out false information.

In remarks to the press yesterday, Bush reiterated his warning that, in spite of the new intelligence assessment, Iran remained a threat and Tehran faced a choice between negotiation or isolation.

The president said that the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, had been in touch with Britain and France to discuss a push for a new round of UN sanctions against Iran.

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