Split Over Iran Nukes

The United States and its allies seem unified in their desire to use diplomacy and the threat of sanctions to press Iran to abandon any nuclear-weapons program it may have. But they appear to differ on whether that program exists or not.

Three European counterproliferation officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that British intelligence agencies believe that Iran is actively pushing ahead with a nuclear-bomb program. One of the officials said that U.K. intelligence outfits—led by MI-6—are "skeptical" of suggestions, most notably by U.S. intelligence agencies, that Iran stopped work on a military program to design and build a nuclear weapon in 2003.

The U.S. position is contained in a controversial National Intelligence Estimate, produced in 2007. This document said that U.S. agencies "judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" and that "the halt lasted at least several years." The 2007 NIE also said that American agencies assessed "with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

As NEWSWEEK reported last month, U.S. intelligence agencies today still stand by the 2007 assessment. So the American position would appear to be at odds with the U.K.'s expression of "skepticism" that Iran stopped work on nuclear weapons in 2003.

U.S. officials acknowledged this week that there do seem to be differences between Washington and some of its closest allies—including Germany and Israel—when it comes to assessing Iran's progress on weapons development. However, one U.S. intelligence official insisted: "The public reports of differences are, to some degree, exaggerated. Our judgments on the Iranian nuclear program—like all the judgments we reach—are subject to reassessment in light of new information, which comes in constantly. But you have to weigh and test each piece, running tough traps on everything from sourcing to assumptions."

Several U.S. and European officials said they were confident that the allied agencies—including CIA, MI-6, Germany's BND and Israel's Mossad—were working from the same raw information. In other words, neither the United States nor any of the allies have secret, unilateral sources of intelligence which would lead them to different conclusions about Iran's bomb efforts, the officials maintain.

Two of the European officials suggested that the American assessment is very cautious because U.S. intelligence analysts still feel burned by their mistakes in the run-up to the Iraq War, when faulty intelligence was used by Bush administration officials to justify military action. Among the errors: that Saddam Hussein maintained an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, including an effort to develop nukes. Evidence gathered by U.S. intelligence after the American invasion established that Saddam had no WMD stockpiles and that he had abandoned most of the research on such weapons years before the invasion. (Some European agencies also wrongly assessed Saddam's WMD efforts.)