The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Dec. 11, wrote the Iranian opposition group that first exposed Iran’s nuclear-fuel program said a U.S. intelligence analysis is correct that Tehran shut down its weaponization program in 2003, but claims that the program was relocated and restarted in 2004.
The claim, to be made public today by the National Council for Resistance in Iran, joins a broad pushback by conservative hawks who say the U.S. analysis has wrongly given the impression that Iran’s nuclear-fuel program doesn’t present an urgent threat.

In recent days, Republican lawmakers have called for a review of the process that created the NIE which was released last week. Senior U.S. officials have been consulting with allies to explain why the estimate differed so drastically from previous assessments.
A former U.S. intelligence official who works closely with the White House on Iran said that all the intelligence related to the NIE was being reassessed and that information coming from sources such as the NCRI would be included. “You have to take seriously what they say…” the official said.

A representative of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog in Vienna, declined to comment on the claims, but said the agency would consider seriously any NCRI information. A spokesman for the Iranian government couldn’t be reached for comment.