Quote Originally Posted by Sean Osborne View Post
... in the text of the unclassified version of the NIE were the objections of the DOE and the NIC to some of the estimates, assessments, key judgements and key assumptions made in the document.
One of our main allies in the Middle East also had objections to the current NIE. Those objections resulted in an "unusual visit" to Israel by C-JCS Admiral Mike Mullen on Monday, 10 December.

According to a report published the next day by the New York Times:

Israeli intelligence estimates say Iran stopped all its nuclear weapons activities for a time in 2003, nervous after the American invasion of Iraq, but then resumed those activities in 2005, accelerating enrichment and ballistic missile development and constructing a 40-megawatt heavy-water reactor in Arak that could produce plutonium.
The LA Times also reported on that day what Admiral Mullen told his Israeli hosts:

Mullen said after the meetings that both Barak and Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the new head of the Israeli defense staff, expressed a desire to work with the U.S. on analyzing American intelligence on the Iranian program.

Mullen said he expressed similar U.S. concerns about the enrichment program, calling it the "center of gravity" of the Iranian program that needs to be stopped with the help of international pressure.

He also reiterated American views that Iran continues to mislead nuclear regulators about the extent and intentions of its program.

"I wanted to reassure them that I still consider Iran a threat," Mullen said in an interview with The Times aboard his aircraft.

"Their hegemonic views, their regime's rhetoric, still speaking to the elimination of Israel, is all very disturbing to me. I intended to leave the impression with them that I wasn't taking my eye off the mark."
The Jerusalem Post also published a report that included a significant detail from the Israeli perspective:

During their meetings, Mullen and Ashkenazi discussed the Iranian threat. Israel believes Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon and will be ready to manufacture such a device as early as the end of 2009.
Question: If the US NIE is accurate and Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and had not re-started it as of mid-2007, how can Iran be capable of manufacturing a weapon in about two years time?

The unclassified NIE states on its last page the basis of the US and Israeli differences:

We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely.
The details regarding these differences would appear to exist in the classified version of the NIE.