Fox News' Rosen misrepresented intelligence community's estimated timeframe for Iranian nuclear weapon capability

Summary: On Special Report, Fox News Washington correspondent James Rosen reported that the "intelligence community's unclassified estimate" for when Iran could develop nuclear weapons "points to the end of this decade." In fact, U.S. intelligence agencies have identified 2010 as "the earliest" projected date at which Iran could achieve nuclear weapon capability.

On the May 10 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News Washington correspondent James Rosen reported that the "intelligence community's unclassified estimate" for when Iran could develop nuclear weapons "points to the end of this decade." In fact, U.S. intelligence agencies have identified 2010 as "the earliest" projected date at which Iran could achieve nuclear weapon capability.

As Media Matters for America has noted, according to an April 14 New York Times article, Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis "said the official view of the [U.S.] intelligence agencies remained that Iran was unlikely to have nuclear weapons before 2010 at the earliest." Further, the Times reported on April 17 that "[i]f Iran moved beyond research and actually began running the machines [necessary to create enriched uranium], it could force American intelligence agencies to revise their estimates of how long it would take for Iran to build an atom bomb -- an event they now put somewhere between 2010 and 2015."

From the May 10 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

ROSEN: Undersecretary of State for Arms Control [and International Security], Robert Joseph, said last month Iran is, quote, "very close to a point of no return in its progress toward a nuclear weapon." The intelligence community's unclassified estimate points to the end of this decade. Experts in Israel, the state most directly threatened by Iran, say diplomacy has another year left to work if it ever will. Brit.

—K.D.