Politics in the NIE admitted

The director of national intelligence is backing off of the NIE report that came out late last year which claimed that Iran had stopped it's nuclear weapons program in 2003. He says now he should have worded it differently. In other words, Iran only halted one third of the nuclear weapons program. The continual enrichment of uranium and the developing of long range rockets to deliver the weapons did not actually stop at all. From Eli Lake at The New York Sun is U.S. Spy Chief Retreats on Iran Estimate.

• At a hearing yesterday of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the intelligence director, Michael McConnell, said, "If I had 'til now to think about it, I probably would change a few things." He later added, "I would change the way we describe the Iranian nuclear program. I would have included that there are the component parts, that the portion of it, maybe the least significant, had halted."

What a friggin' relief that the least significant part was what had halted. Thanks for the accuracy in reporting in that initial report, Mr. McConnell.