[Between The Lines, Week Ending Dec. 14, 2007] After months of ratcheting up hostile rhetoric against Iran, with the implicit threat of military action, President Bush’s repeated assertion that Tehran was developing nuclear weapons hit a brick wall. On Dec. 3, 16 U.S. intelligence agencies released a National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, that found with high confidence Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003 and the program remains frozen. While the new intelligence report states the U.S. does not know Iran’s long-term intentions toward the production of nuclear weapons, the declassified paper contradicts a 2005 National Intelligence Estimate… [Download & Between the Lines]