The Islamic Bomb Is Apparently on Hold

A new National Intelligence Estimate suggests that the Iranian nuclear weapons program ended in 2003:

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 frozen, contradicting 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.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping 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 designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that 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 estimate declares with “high confidence” that a military-run Iranian program intended to transform that raw material into a nuclear weapon has been shut down since 2003, and also says with high confidence that the halt “was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

Mmmmm... What else happened in 2003 that might have influenced Iran's decision to stop trying to produce weapons of mass destruction? Could that little dust-up between their neighbor Iraq and the U.S. have had something to do with it?

I'm still skeptical that this NIE is completely accurate. Let's not forget the NIE that stated categorically that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and helped cause the Iraq war. The Iranians have been as belligerent toward the West as the Iraqis were prior to 2003, but the Iranians might actually have the materials and the know-how to pull it off.