Iran retains key nuke capabilities

Reuters:

Iran retains key nuclear capabilities despite having frozen weapons development in 2003, and its ambitions cannot be considered benign, a senior U.S. spy official told Congress on Thursday.

The deputy director of National Intelligence, Donald Kerr, told a House of Representatives Intelligence subcommittee that there was reason to believe Iran still wanted an ability to make nuclear weapons.

He was responding to a Republican lawmaker who questioned the accuracy of an official National Intelligence Estimate this week that said U.S. agencies did not know whether Iran intended to develop a nuclear weapon.

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But Iran still had the "most important" component of a future program, a uranium-enrichment plant, Kerr told the panel. That and Iran's civil nuclear power program can provide important expertise. Iran also was working on ballistic missiles, he said.

"We did not in any way suggest that Iran was benign for the future," Kerr told the panel. "What we had to do was address the evidence we had, that at least a part of their program (was) suspended in 2003."

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U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican, told Kerr he was puzzled by the new intelligence estimate. "We have this sort of dichotomy, the words and actions from Iran seem to be offset by the National Intelligence Estimate," Tiahrt said.

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That dichotomy was not addressed by the NIE in what has been released, nor is it addressed further in the Reuters report. It is certainly an area that deserves more digging by reporters. However, Kerr's testimony suggest that President Bush is closer to the proper interpretation of the NIE than the Democrats are.