Oops! The new N.I.E. says Iran gave up on developing nukes in 2003. So what did the Bush regime know and when did they know it?

N.S.A. Stephen Hadley will get to the bottom of the Iran thing
right after he gets to the bottom of, er, the Iraq thing.

By now you've surely heard the news. The long, long awaited National Intelligence Estimate (N.I.E.) on Iran has finally seen the light of day, and it could hardly be more devastating for the lying liars of the Bush regime. Even as Karl Rove's recent psychotic episode has them stumbling over the web of lies they used to bamboozle the country into war with Iraq, as Mark Mazzetti reports in tomorrow's New York Times:

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a 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 to keep its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies "do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

Considering the intensity of the anti-Iran warmongering campaign waged by the administration earlier this year, the obvious first questions will be the tried-and-true "What did they know?" and "When did they know it?"

As it happens, reporters expressed curiosity about these very questions at National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's press conference this afternoon to comment on the Iran N.I.E. Of course getting information out of Steve isn't so easy--the poor guy is still trying to figure out how those infamous 16 words about Saddam Hussein trying to buy yellowcake in Niger found their way into the president's State of the Union address. You'll recall that our Steve, then deputy N.S.A., was kind of left holding the bag, and he appears never quite to have gotten to the bottom of it. He got some consolation, however, when he was promoted to succeed his former boss Condi Rice as N.S.A. (As usual in the Bush regime, nothing succeeds like failure.)

Now poor Steve has to keep track of two sets of lies: the Iraq lies and the Iran lies. Here is Think Progress's take:

Hadley: Bush Learned Of NIE's Findings ‘In The Last
Few Months,' But Continued To Ratchet Up Rhetoric

This afternoon, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley held a press briefing on the new National Intelligence Estimate, which concludes that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. As ThinkProgress has documented, Bush administration officials--despite knowing of the NIE--have been ratcheting up their rhetoric on Iran in the past couple of months.

The central question in today's briefing for Hadley was whether White House officials intentionally disregarded the intelligence community's findings in order to bang the war drums against Iran. Reporters repeatedly pressed Hadley on the specific date when the White House learned about the NIE's findings. Yet incredibly, he refused to give a "precise answer," instead stating that it was within the "last few months." From the briefing:

QUESTION: Steve, what is the first time the president was given the inkling that something? I'm not clear on this. Was it months ago, when the first information started to become available to intelligence agencies? […]

HADLEY: [W]hen was the president notified that there was new information available? We'll try and get you a precise answer. As I say, it was, in my recollection, is in the last few months. Whether that's October--August-September, we'll try and get you an answer for that.

On at least five different occasions, Hadley said the White House learned of the NIE sometime in the "last few months." Watch a compilation:

[VIDEO CLIP]

The issue is whether the President himself lied to the public about Iran's intentions, despite knowing that Iran was even "less determined to develop nuclear weapons." In October, Bush told a reporter that Iran was trying to "build a nuclear weapon":

Q: But you definitively believe Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon?

THE PRESIDENT: I think so long--until they suspend and/or make it clear that they--that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon. […]

So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously.

So to recap: Sometime in the "last few months," Bush learned that Iran is "less determined to develop nuclear weapons." Yet as late as October, Bush was still claiming that Iran "wants to build a nuclear weapon." What did Bush know and when did he know it?

Stay tuned.

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