April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Iran is ``some years away'' from developing a nuclear bomb, said Thomas Fingar, deputy U.S. director of national intelligence.

Fingar, who chairs the National Intelligence Council, said that's the shared assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies. Fingar, one of three deputies who reports to national intelligence director John Negroponte, is in charge of intelligence analysis.

The question of how soon Iran could build a nuclear weapon gained urgency April 11 when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had enriched uranium sufficiently to produce nuclear fuel. He said 164 centrifuges were used. Yesterday, Deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi said Iran planned to install 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant this year, then expand to 54,000. Nuclear experts say that's enough to build a bomb.

Fingar and other senior intelligence officials, talking with reporters in Washington, sought to put Iran's assertions in context.

Kenneth Brill, head of the National Counterproliferation Center and the U.S. envoy to the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, said previous Iranian claims about their number of working centrifuges were exaggerated.

An arms inspector visiting Iran ``several years ago was presented with a very full array of centrifuges and told, `Look, we're all ready to go,' and that turned out to be a sort of Potemkin arrangement,'' Brill said.

``There is still a very significant amount of time'' before Iranians ``get where they want to go,'' he said. ``Let's see what really happened in Iran.''

UN Testing Iran's Assertion

The head of that UN watchdog agency said today that it's not yet possible to confirm Ahmadinejad's assertion. Mohamed ElBaradei, speaking after talks with Iranian officials in Tehran, said agency inspectors took samples and will report to the agency's board, Agence France-Presse reported.

The UN Security Council demanded the suspension of Iran's nuclear program by the end of this month. The U.S. considers the program a front to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran maintains it will use nuclear power to produce electricity.

The Security Council, through a presidential statement issued March 29, gave Iran 30 days to comply with the IAEA's demands without outlining any consequences for non-compliance.

Rice Urges `Consequences'

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today repeated her call to the Council to take strong action when it reconvenes to discuss the Iran matter.

``There will have to be some consequence for that action and that defiance,'' she told reporters in Washington. ``And we will look at the full range of options available to the Security Council. It can't be another presidential statement.''

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said it will be necessary for the council to follow through with some threat of isolation for Iran if it proceeds with its nuclear development.

``Right now the ball is in the UN's court, and I think they must take some action, fairly strong action, in the reasonably near future,'' Cohen said in an interview.

Brill and other intelligence officials declined to give details of their current analysis of Iran's nuclear program.

They talked with reporters about how the Office of Director of Intelligence, which was established last year after repeated failures of spy agencies, has changed how the U.S. gathers covert information.

Fingar said Negroponte is encouraging more debate among intelligence analysts and is more vigorous in checking the validity of its sources in the aftermath of the faulty information that led the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003 to knock out weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist.

Critics such as Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have said they'll be more skeptical of the Iranian assessment in light of the failures on Iraq.

``The skepticism is both appropriate and welcome,'' Fingar said. ``We realize we have to rebuild confidence.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 13, 2006 19:08 EDT