First the Israelis and now the British. Combine that with the Department of Energy and the National Intelligence Council being on “moderately” confident the program was halted, and you can call me skeptical.

British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.

The CIA? Hoodwinked? Nevuh…

But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war – as their reports on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes did in Iraq – that they got it wrong this time.

A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.

The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. “We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.

If that isn’t enough:

A US intelligence source has revealed that some American spies share the concerns of the British and the Israelis. “Many middle- ranking CIA veterans believe Iran is still committed to producing nuclear weapons and are concerned that the agency lost a number of its best sources in Iran in 2004,” the official said.

Here’s the domestic part that really bothers me: Democrats continuously point out how our intelligence was wrong and we were “mis-led” into Iraq. Now, however, the same report that led us to Iraq says Iran has suspended its nuke program, and the Left and media take it at face value. I’ll leave you with this:

Bruce Reidel, who spent 25 years on the Middle East desks at the CIA and the National Security Council, said: “By going public they have embarrassed our friends, particularly the British and the Israelis. They have given our foes insights into our most secret intelligence and taken most of the options off the table.”

Ephraim Sneh, until recently Israel’s deputy minister of defence, warned that military action would be the only option if the world community did not institute robust sanctions. “No one can rule out with high confidence that somewhere in Iran, 70 times the size of Israel, there is one lab working on the weapons programme,” Mr Sneh told The Sunday Telegraph.

“[Military action] is not a desired option; it is a last resort. That’s why sanctions are so important. We have to urge the international community to be serious about sanctions and to take necessary measures to defend the civilian population.”