Iran president: U.S. intelligence report a 'declaration of victory' for Tehran's nuclear program

TEHRAN, Iran — A new U.S. intelligence review concluding Iran stopped developing an atomic weapons program in 2003 is a "declaration of victory" for Iran's nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.

Russia's foreign minister, meanwhile, indicated that the U.S. report's findings undermined Washington's push for a new set of U.N. sanctions against Iran.

The U.S. intelligence report released Monday concluded that Iran had stopped its weapons program in late 2003 and shown no signs since of resuming it, representing a sharp turnaround from a previous intelligence assessment in 2005.

"This is a declaration of victory for the Iranian nation against the world powers over the nuclear issue," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people during a visit to Ilam province in western Iran.

"This was a final shot to those who, in the past several years, spread a sense of threat and concern in the world through lies of nuclear weapons," Ahmadinejad said, drawing celebratory whistles from the crowd.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would not directly respond to Ahmadinejad's remarks, but told reporters in the Ethiopian capital Wednesday that the public release of the National Intelligence Estimate showed the Bush administration was committed to transparent democracy while Iran was not.

Iran has touted the report as vindication of its claims that its nuclear program is peaceful and Iranian officials insist that Washington should take a less hawkish stance and drop attempts to impose new sanctions in light of the report's surprise conclusions.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, called the report a "sigh of relief" because its conclusions also jibe with the agency's own findings.

"Iran obviously has been somewhat vindicated in saying they have not been working on a weapons program, at least for the last few years," ElBaradei told reporters in Brazil's capital, Brasilia.

ElBaradei did not say whether the U.S. report's findings will undermine Washington's push for a new set of U.N. sanctions against Iran, but warned that the International Atomic Energy Agency still plans more inspections to address some issues about Tehran's nuclear energy program.

"We have not seen a smoking gun in the last few years, but we still have work to be performed," he said. "Iran needs to continue working with us. Iran needs to clear the deck."