White House brushes off CIA report on Iran-report

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) The White House dismissed a classified CIA draft assessment that found no conclusive evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, the New Yorker reported.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said the CIA's analysis was based on technical intelligence collected by overhead satellites and on other evidence like measurements of the radioactivity of water samples.

''The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency,'' according to the article.

''A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it,'' it said.

The United States has accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian energy program.

The article, in the current issue of the magazine, discussed how Vice President Dick Cheney believed the Bush administration would deal with Iran if the Republicans lost control of Congress as they did in the November 7 election.

''If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran,'' Hersh wrote, citing an unidentified source familiar with the discussion.

REUTERS SP KP2054