Either the George Bush administration has not understood the latest US intelligence assessment on Iran’s nuclear programme or it does not want to.

The latest report of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) put together by 16 US spy agencies says with “high confidence” that Iran had halted its nuclear programme in 2003 and notes with “moderate confidence” that the programme had not re-started as of mid-2007. The NIE report confirms what International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei and other observers of the Iranian nuclear programme have been saying since 2004: Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons but in the deterrent value inherent in the knowledge of mastering the nuclear fuel cycle.

The logical conclusion that one would draw from the report is that there is no need for fresh sanctions on Iran, a position that Russia and China have been pushing in the Security Council. But the US and Britain think otherwise.

US President George Bush has said that the international community must continue to pressure Iran because its government “could restart” development of a nuclear weapon at any time. This view has been echoed by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. It does seem that the US and Britain have latched on to a single sentence in the report - the intelligence report says that it is unaware whether Iran currently intends developing nuclear weapons – on which to base their response.

The Bush Administration has given a strange spin to the NIE’s conclusions. It has interpreted the conclusions as indicating the success of its approach to Iran, that Iran refrained from developing nuclear weapons because of sanctions, and that this calls for more sanctions to keep Iran from developing weapons in future.

This is not just flawed logic but also dangerous misinterpretation and wilful ignorance. Earlier Bush brushed away US intelligence agencies who told him he was wrong in claiming that Iraq had purchased yellow cake from Niger.

And now he isn’t listening to their report which clearly states that his claims on Iran’s nuclear programme are not based on facts. Clearly he has learned no lessons. And neither has Britain for that matter. If Tony Blair blindly followed the Bush Administration into Iraq in 2003, his successor continues to take his cues from the Bush Administration on Iran. Iran was, is and will continue to be dangerous, claims Bush. This indicates that he will persist on his confrontationist path with Iran.