To the surprise of exactly no one outside of MoveOn.org’s contact list, American intelligence agencies are now discrediting the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that claimed Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003.

The report, the real purpose of which was to make the Bush Administration look foolish and hold off any action until after the 2008 election, also claimed that the Iranian nuke program hadn’t been restarted in the four years since.

U.S. intelligence agencies are quietly revising their widely disputed assertion that Iran has no active program to design or build a nuclear bomb. Three U.S. and two foreign counterproliferation officials tell NEWSWEEK that, as soon as next month, the intel agencies are expected to complete an “update” to their controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Tehran “halted its nuclear weapons program” in 2003 and “had not restarted” it as of mid-2007.

The NIE was out of place in the international intelligence community even back in 2007. Intelligence services for Britain, Germany, and Israel continued — and still continue — to assert that Iran has continually pursued nuclear weapons. This update will supposedly bring the inaccurate 2007 NIE inline with international reports.

It’s just sad that it took 3 years and a presidential election before this report was discredited. Democrats bashed George Bush over the head with this NIE, insisting it proved he was incorrectly pursuing a tough strategy against a country that hadn’t been pursuing nuclear weapons for years. Supposedly this proved he was trying to get us into another Iraq.

But as the record will soon officially state, Iran never stopped its pursuit of nuclear weapons. George Bush and the hawkish Republicans were correct. The anti-war liberals and their allies were wrong. Iran is on course to become a nuclear power and the Islamic Republic’s pursuit was not interrupted in 2003 or at any point since.