Last week, however, the House committee assessment was slammed by U.N. nuclear experts, who pointed out that there’s little evidence Iran is anywhere near producing weapons-grade uranium. And three U.S. officials familiar with recent intel reporting on Iran, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitive subject matter, said that U.S. agencies have not altered assessments that Iran is years away from producing a nuclear bomb. As two of the officials acknowledge, recent intel reporting indicates that if anything, technical problems are slowing down Iran’s nuclear program. David Albright, a former U.N. WMD inspector and independent expert, told NEWSWEEK: “Iran’s gas-centrifuge program is moving unexpectedly slowly. The program was expected to be much further along by this point.” Albright says this assessment is supported by data produced by U.N. investigators; one of the government officials says that because U.N. inspectors still have some access to Iranian nuke facilities, their reporting is at least as good as info being produced by clandestine U.S. spies. Another of the U.S. officials said intel reports show Iran was experiencing significant problems with gyroscopes it has been trying to install on missiles that could deliver Iranian bombs to targets in the region and even further.
Officials in National Intelligence Director John Negroponte’s office have told journalists that U.S. intel believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuke until about 2010 at the earliest, and perhaps not until 2015. A spokesman for Negroponte’s office says intel agencies are now working on a new National Intelligence Estimate–a classified report laying out the consensus view of all agencies–about Iran’s nuclear effort; the spokesman said that for the moment, the agencies’ Iran nuke timeline was unchanged, “but we’re researching it.”
