WASHINGTON, Dec 4: US President George W. Bush declared on Tuesday that Iran still has the potential to make a nuclear weapon, disregarding a joint report by his own intelligence agencies that Tehran abandoned its weapon programme in 2003.

At a news conference called to dispel the allegation that the Bush administration had been exaggerating the Iranian nuclear threat, Mr Bush said that the US national intelligence estimate, released on Monday, had not changed its opinion about Iran.

“Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” he declared.

The new assessment, which represents the consensus of American intelligence agencies, was welcomed in Tehran where Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki described it as a ‘realistic’ change in US approach to the issue.

“It is natural that we welcome it,” Mr Mottaki, told state-run radio. “Some of the same countries which had questions or ambiguities about our nuclear programme are changing their views realistically.”

A foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said the NIE vindicated Iran’s position on the nuclear dispute.

“This report proves that Mr Bush’s statements -- which always speak of the serious threat of Iran’s nuclear programme -- are unreliable and fictitious,” he said.

Mr Hosseini said the premise of the report, that Iran had a weapons programme, was baseless. The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also welcomed the report, hoping that it would help ease the confrontation with Iran.

Israel, however, expressed deep scepticism. “We can’t allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the earth, even if it is from our greatest friend,” said Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

At the White House news conference, reporters repeatedly asked Mr Bush if his administration’s previous judgments of Iran’s nuclear intention were wrong. One reporter reminded Mr Bush that only last month he had alarmed the world by declaring that a failure to stop Iran from going nuclear could risk ‘World War III.’

Mr Bush said that he learned of the new intelligence findings only last week, and that no one in the intelligence community had urged him to step back from his tough warning that a nuclear Iran could pose a danger of a ‘World War III.’

The president said he saw the NIE as ‘a warning signal’ of a continuing threat from Iran, and he insisted that the “carrots and sticks” approach to Iran had been vindicated by the fact that Iran had halted its weapons programme.

“This is heartening news,” Mr Bush said. “To me it’s a way for us to rally our partners.”

The president said he made the decision to hold a news conference to explain the NIE because “the NIE has not done anything to change my opinion” about the threat Iran posed to the world.

He said the US knew that Iran was “still trying to learn how to enrich uranium. We know that enriching uranium is an important step” in developing a weapon. They also are testing ballistic missiles, which could deliver an atomic bomb, he said. “If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, the world would be a very dangerous place,” he said.