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Nuclear Program In Iran Halted

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By MARK MAZZETTI, The New York Times

Published: December 4, 2007

WASHINGTON - A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran's nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

Concerns about Iran were raised sharply after President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to "World War III," and Vice President Dick Cheney promised "serious consequences" if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

The finding also comes 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 is likely to keep its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies "do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is intended for civilian purposes.

The new estimate says that the enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new report essentially disavows a judgment that the intelligence agencies issued in 2005, which concluded that Iran had an active secret arms program intended to transform the raw material into a nuclear weapon.

The new estimate declares instead with "high confidence" that that military-run program has been shut down since 2003, and it concludes that the halt was imposed by Iran "primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure."

It was not clear what prompted the reversal. Administration officials said the new estimate reflected conclusions that the intelligence agencies had agreed on only in the past several weeks.

The report's agnosticism about Iran's nuclear intentions represents a very different tone than had been struck by Bush, and by Cheney, who warned in a speech in October that if Iran "stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences."

The estimate does not say when intelligence agencies learned that the arms program had been halted, but officials said new information obtained from covert sources over the summer had led to a reassessment of Iran's nuclear program and a decision to delay preparation of the estimate, which had been scheduled to be delivered to Congress in the spring.

The new report came out just over five years after a 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq concluded that it possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program. That estimate was instrumental in winning the congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, but it proved to be deeply flawed, and most of its conclusions turned out to be wrong.

Intelligence officials said the specter of the 2002 estimate on Iraq hung over their deliberations on Iran even more than it had in 2005, when the lessons from the intelligence failure on Iraq were just beginning to prompt spy agencies to adapt a more rigorous approach to their findings.

The 2007 report on Iran had been requested by members of Congress, underscoring that any conclusions could affect U.S. policy toward Iran at a delicate time.

Bush administration officials said the new findings suggest that diplomacy has been effective in containing Iran's nuclear ambitions, although President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains " a serious problem."

The estimate suggests that Bush "has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests, while ensuring that the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran," Hadley said.

The finding comes at a time of escalating tensions between the United States and Iran, which Bush has labeled part of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea.

The new intelligence estimate brought American assessments more in line with the judgments of international arms inspectors.

Last month, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported that Iran was operating 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges capable of producing fissile material for nuclear weapons, but he said inspectors had been unable to determine whether the Iranian program sought only to generate electricity or to also build weapons.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., portrayed the assessment as "directly challenging some of this administration's alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran" and called for enhanced diplomatic efforts toward Tehran.

Democratic presidential candidates mostly echoed Reid, but also emphasized that Iran's long-term ambitions were still a great concern to the United States.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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