"..... The May 2009 National Intelligence Estimate deemed Tehran unlikely to have a long-range missile until between 2015 and 2020, U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
A previous assessment, used by former President George W. Bush to justify plans for deploying a missile defense system in Europe to counter the threat of long-range missiles from Iran, said the threshold would be crossed between 2012 and 2015............
Some current and former officials said the new National Intelligence Estimate amounted to a relatively small shift in U.S. thinking about when Iran will have long-range missiles.
They said Tehran could push ahead more quickly if it received technical assistance from a third party. "That's something you've got to worry about," a current administration official said. "But we've not seen that to date."
After U.S. spy agencies wrongly concluded that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, intelligence estimates have come under greater scrutiny.
In 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate judgment that Iran had not restarted its nuclear-weapons development program -- an assessment that officials say has not be changed -- was challenged by Israel and some European allies...."
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