Israel sees U.S. policy change behind NIE

JERUSALEM — Israel has questioned the latest U.S. intelligence assessment on Iran, with some senior officials raising the prospect of a major policy change in the Bush administration.

Officials said the NIE, which asserted that Teheran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, appeared to reflect an administration decision to abandon a U.S. military option against Iran.

Duh, ya think?

The officials said NIE reflected a paucity of U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear program.

"If on the issue of Iraq there was overassessment [of intelligence], here there was underassessment," Yuval Steinitz, chairman of a Knesset subcommittee that oversees the Israeli strategic dialogue with the United States, said.

In September 2007, Steinitz headed a Knesset delegation to the United States to discuss such issues as Iran, Egypt and Al Qaida with the administration and Congress. The delegation met Vice President Richard Cheney and exchanged assessments of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"They never said Iran had stopped the nuclear weapons program," Steinitz recalled on Tuesday. "There were differences on when Iran would reach nuclear weapons capability, but not that it sought such capability."

Until NIE was released on Dec. 3, officials said, the U.S. intelligence community maintained that Iran could assemble nuclear weapons by 2011. Israel has concluded that Iran could build its first nuclear weapons by late 2009.