US intelligence agencies believe Iran's leaders are divided over the question of whether to use its nuclear program to develop atomic weapons and is immersed in a serious internal debate about how to proceed in the face of international sanctions, American officials said Wednesday.
"We continue to assess Iran is keeping the option open to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons should it choose to do so," National Intelligence Director James Clapper told Congress. "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."
Two officials told The Associated Press that the United States believes Iran's government is fragmented on the matter and beset by divisions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the findings of a new classified assessment of Iran that Clapper told lawmakers on Wednesday had been completed recently.
The key finding of the new NIE that Iran's leaders remain divided over whether to go forward with a bomb was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
The new National Intelligence Estimate replaces a 2007 version that controversially concluded Iran had abandoned attempts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003. That report was disputed by Israel and several European intelligence services. Discussing the broad outlines of the findings, Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran remained a challenge and a potential threat despite the internal debate.
"We see a disturbing confluence of events: an Iran that is increasingly rigid, autocratic, dependent on coercion to maintain control and defiant toward the West, and an Iran that continues to advance its uranium enrichment capabilities along with what appears to be the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if its leaders choose to do so," he said.
At the White House, when asked about the new intelligence estimate, national security spokesman Tommy Vietor said he would not comment on intelligence matters.
But Vietor said the administration's approach is driven "by the fact that Iran has failed to demonstrate clearly peaceful nuclear intentions." "Iran has engaged in a constant pattern of deception on its nuclear program," Vietor said. "Iran has pursued its nuclear program in ways that only deepen the world's concerns, including by building a secret enrichment plant, enriching uranium to higher levels, and refusing to meet its international obligations."