US intelligence agencies, in an unexpected reversal, said they have concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program four years ago in a concession to international pressure.
The assessment said Iran continues to enrich uranium and still could develop a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015.
But the report, a composite of findings from US intelligence agencies called the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, should bolster those who have said that US President George W. Bush has overstated the threat posed by Iran and weaken the argument for military action.
"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 released on Monday said.
It was uncertain whether the development will have an impact on the Bush administration's drive for new sanctions against Iran at the UN. A top US diplomat said on Monday that China may be open to discussing fresh Security Council sanctions against Tehran.
Like Russia, China had been reluctant to support new sanctions; both Russia and China have Security Council vetoes that could stop a US effort to push through tougher sanctions.
Tensions have been escalating between the US and Iran, which Bush in 2002 said belonged to an "axis of evil" with Korea and Iraq.
Speaking of Iran during a news conference last month, Bush said: "If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Rand Beers, who resigned from the National Security Council just before the Iraq war in 2003 and served as security adviser to Senator John Kerry's effort to unseat Bush in the 2004 presidential campaign, said the report should derail any appetite for war on the administration's part and should reinvigorate regional diplomacy.
"The new NIE throws cold water on the efforts of those urging military confrontation with Iran," Beers said.
Senior intelligence officials said on Monday they had failed to detect Iran's halt in nuclear weapons development several months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, in time to reflect it in the last NIE, issued in 2005.
One official said Iran is the most challenging country to spy on, harder even than North Korea.
"We put a lot more collection assets against this," the official said, "but gaps remain."
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