White House Changes Iran Intel Story

So much for that story. On Tuesday, the President claimed that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told him "in
August" that "we have some new information" regarding Iran’s nuclear program. "He didn’t tell me what the information was."

Last night, however, the White House, um, clarified the President's earlier remarks:

In August, DNI Director McConnell advised President Bush that the intelligence community would not be able to meet a congressionally imposed deadline requiring a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran because new information had been obtained just as they were about to finalize the report.

He said that if the new information turns out to be true, what we thought we knew for sure is right. Iran does in fact have a covert nuclear weapons program, but it may be suspended...

Director McConnell said that the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program, but the intelligence community was not prepared to draw any conclusions at that point in time, and it wouldn’t be right to speculate until they had time to examine and analyze the new data."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto tells the Washington Post that "anyone who thinks that the threat from Iran has receded or diminished is naive and is not paying attention to the facts."

As Dan Froomkin notes, Bush's rhetoric on Iran seemed to change in early August. On July 12th, for example, he talked about the
"regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons." By August 9th,
President was speaking about the Iranians "desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program."

Obviously, not all of the words were careful; take mid-October's warning of a possible "World War III" with Tehran.

(High five: TP)

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