posted August 24, 2006 01:17 AM              

by Stephen Collinson
2 hours, 2 minutes ago

A congressional committee warned of "significant" gaps in US intelligence on Iran, a scenario it said precluded confident assessments on Tehran's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs.

The unclassified report called on US intelligence agencies to offer better information to policymakers in the event of any talks on the current nuclear showdown, or to check compliance with sanctions if negotiations founder.

It was released as tensions between Iran and the United States rose another notch, as the State Department said Tehran's response to an incentives package aimed at ending the standoff fell short of conditions to avoid sanctions.

"There is a great deal about Iran that we do not know," the report, issued by the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said.

"The United States lacks critical information needed for analysts to make many of their judgments with confidence about Iran and there are many significant information gaps," said the report, accompanied by a classified annex.

The committee declined to specify where gaps were evident, saying it did not want to tip off the Iranian government, but added that more needed to be done to decipher Iran's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons efforts, its political and economic strategy, alleged support for terrorism and involvement in fomenting violence in Iraq.

"US policymakers and intelligence officials believe, without exception, that the United States must collect more and better intelligence on a wide range of Iranian issues," the report said.

Complaints about the structure of intelligence collection struck a familiar chord. Huge gaps in US knowledge about Iraq's clandestine programs were exposed after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the rationale for war used by the administration of President George W. Bush.

Admitting "American intelligence agencies do not know nearly enough about Iran's nuclear weapons program," the report said the threat had deepened with the election last year of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Though citing evidence that Iran was bent on making nuclear bombs, the committee also raised the possibility that it could be bluffing with a "denial and deception" campaign, similar to that apparently pursued by Saddam Hussein.

Iran has denied it is pressing for nuclear weapons development, saying its program is for purely peaceful purposes of energy generation.

Among recommendations, the report said intelligence analysts must challenge conventional wisdom and called on agencies to improve human intelligence -- up-close spying on Iran.

More Farsi speakers should be recruited to work in intelligence, and new efforts launched to frustrate Iranian counter-intelligence operations.

Suspicion in the United States has centered on the role of Tehran in Iraq, and the report called for better US evaluations of any Iranian support for the insurgency.

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