Despite the new intelligence report which said that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons-building program in 2003, President Bush made it clear at a White House press conference Tuesday morning that nothing has changed in the way the U.S. sees Iran.

“Iran was dangerous,’’ Bush said. “Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous, if they have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.’’

Bush asked reporters rhetorically: "If Iran shows up with a nuclear weapon at some point in time, the world is going to say, what happened to them in 2007? How come they couldn't see the impending danger? It's not going to happen on my watch,'' the president said.

The findings of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, President Bush insisted, mean that Iran still poses a threat. “We know that they’re still trying to learn how to enrich uranium,’’ Bush said. “We know that enriching uranium is an important step for a country that wants to develop a weapon."

'Report is a warning signal'

“I view the report as a warning signal,’’ the president said. “The reason it’s a warning signal is, they could restart it.’’

“Nothing has changed in this NIE that says there’s nothing to worry about – quite the contrary,’’ he explained. “Somebody hid their program once. They could hide it again…. I see danger, and many in the world see the same danger.''

Asked why this report is more credible than a NIE in 2005 which stated that Iran posed a nuclear threat, Bush said: “Without getting into sources and methods, our intelligence community has made a great discovery.’’

'All options on the table'

"Our intelligence community has made a great discovery."



The president added that international pressure had to be applied to Iran to abandon its enrichment of nuclear fuel. He did not rule out any option for the U.S., saying: “The best diplomacy – effective diplomacy, is one in which all options are on the table.’’

Reporters told Bush his body language seemed tired, but he called that observation "Psychology 101." When asked if he faced a credibility gap with Americans over the threat posed by Iraq in 2003 and by Iran today, Bush grew animated.

"The NIE doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world. Quite the contrary," he said. "The NIE makes it clear that the strategy we have used in the past is effective."



U.S. intelligence "covering its flanks"

In Kabul, Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also said that the NIE shows tha

"The NIE makes it clear that the strategy we have used in the past is effective."

t Tehran remains a possible threat. Like Bush, he said it shows that Iran has had a nuclear weapons program and that as long as the country continues with its uranium enrichment activities, Iran could always renew its weapons program.



The U.S. intelligence assessment "validated the administration's strategy of bringing diplomatic and economic efforts to bear on Iran," Gates said Tuesday, speaking at a news conference with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.



Haaretz newspaper speculated Tuesday that the NIE reflected a will on the part of part of the U.S. intelligence community to "cover its flanks" in case the U.S. decides to attack Iran, so that it does not wind up taking the blame for faulty intelligence that led to the war, as happened in the case of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.