On the February 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer asked the undersecretary of state for political affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, to confirm that the Bush administration would be releasing “a full report” to support Burns' claim of “incontrovertible evidence that the Iranians have been giving very sophisticated explosive technology to Shia insurgent groups” in Iraq. But Blitzer did not inform viewers that the report's publication had reportedly been delayed or that, according to a February 1 Los Angeles Times article, the delay is due to concerns within the government over the strength of the evidence. The administration has since acknowledged the delay in issuing the report, because, in the words of national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, "[t]he truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated."

At the beginning of his interview with Burns, Blitzer asked: “What evidence do you have ... that the Iranians are involved in killing American troops in Iraq?” Burns replied that “there's incontrovertible evidence that the Iranians have been giving very sophisticated explosive technology to Shia insurgent groups for the better part of the last year and half,” and that the United States has “warned” Iran it should stop doing so. Blitzer then asked Burns whether “the State Department” was “putting together a dossier, a full report that will be declassified and made public going through your arguments, your evidence.” In response, Burns stated that “we've been making the case for the last several weeks and will continue to make the case to the American people and to the international public that this is a problem.”

But Blitzer, in bringing up the “dossier,” did not ask Burns why the report had not come out yet, even though the administration had reportedly said it would be out on January 31. In a January 25 article, the Los Angeles Times reported that U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad had told reporters that “in the coming days,” he “would soon reveal details he asserted would show Iranian interference” in Iraq. In a January 27 article, The New York Times reported that, according to administration officials, Khalilzad had planned a January 31 news conference, “during which he [would] present a dossier of Iran's efforts to fuel sectarian violence in Iraq.” On the January 29 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry reported the same information as The New York Times. The New York Times further noted in a February 2 article that the release of the dossier has been delayed twice since Khalilzad first announced on January 24 that such a report would be forthcoming.

At a January 31 State Department press briefing, Sean McCormack, the assistant secretary for public affairs, stated that the report would be released “on our own timeline”:

QUESTION: There was some expectation that more evidence would be shown this week about Iran's involvement and activities. When might that --

McCORMACK: I've been cautioning everybody all week long here, we will do this on our own timeline and we're going to do it in such a way that it is properly presented, it is clear and it is done in such a way that in presenting this information that we don't in any way jeopardize our ability to further collect information about these networks. So we'll do this on our own timeline.

Because Blitzer failed to ask about the delay, he missed an opportunity to question the reason for it. In particular, a February 1 Los Angeles Times article reported that, according to unnamed U.S. officials, "[t]he Bush administration has postponed plans to offer public details of its charges of Iranian meddling inside Iraq amid internal divisions over the strength of the evidence." The Times added that, although “U.S. officials promised last week to provide evidence of Iranian activities ... some officials in Washington are concerned that some of the material may be inconclusive and that other data cannot be released without jeopardizing intelligence sources and methods.” The Times further reported that, according to officials, “U.S. military and embassy officials in Baghdad have been trying to build a case with a variety of evidence. ... But officials involved in interagency meetings on the issue in Washington, including some in the State Department and intelligence agencies, believe that some of the material overstates murky evidence and casts a negative light on Iranians who may not be guilty.”

Subsequently, a February 3 Los Angeles Times article reported that Bush administration officials had publicly acknowledged on February 2 that the dossier had been delayed due to concerns about accuracy and reliability.

From a February 2 press briefing with Hadley:

QUESTION: Steve, in 2002 and 2003, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the administration made statements that were obviously not borne by facts subsequently. And it later came out that caveats from the intelligence community, caveats from Energy Department analysts, those were left out of public statements of Vice President [Dick] Cheney, the president, others in the administration. Now when it comes to Iran, you've been saying for months that Iran is a key driver of violence in Iraq. You've said there is evidence tying Iran to attacks in Iraq. You've said that you'd make that evidence public. That supposed to be made public on the 31st.

HADLEY: Right.

QUESTION: It wasn't.

HADLEY: That's correct.

[...]

QUESTION: When will that be, that briefing?

HADLEY: When this process gets done, the briefing will be -- will come out. I don't think there's a timetable on this point since it's slipped a couple times. We want to get the work done so that we can get people a firm date and that we won't have to change.

QUESTION: Even though it was already scheduled and officials in Baghdad gave a date, they gave a time, and in some cases, they gave a place?

HADLEY: Correct.

QUESTION: And now it's been pushed back. Can we conclude anything from that other than people looked at the intelligence that was set to offered and said, this is not good enough?

HADLEY: No, I wouldn't --

QUESTION: Does that mean there was a willingness to overstate it?

HADLEY: The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated. And we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts. And that's not a criticism of anybody. It was, in some sense, an attempt to do and address some of the issues in the NIE in a briefing on intelligence of Iranian activity in Iraq. And we thought, hey, why are we doing this? Let's get the NIE out, the coordinated intelligence judgment of the intelligence community. And then with that as context, get a briefing that is focused on and one that we're confident everyone can stand behind.

From the February 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

BLITZER: The Bush administration has been blasting Iran for aiding Shiite militants in Iraq and for a nuclear program that U.S. officials maintain is aimed at building a bomb. If the administration decides to get tough with Iran, what would it make the case to the American people with given the experiences in Iraq?

Joining us now, the undersecretary of state, Nicholas Burns. Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for coming in.

BURNS: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: What evidence do you have, for example, that the Iranians are involved in killing American troops in Iraq?

BURNS: Well, Wolf, I think there's incontrovertible evidence that the Iranians have been giving very sophisticated explosive technology to Shia insurgent groups for the better part of the last year and half. Those groups have used that technology -- some of which is armor-piercing -- to attack American soldiers and British soldiers and to kill them. It's a very, very serious development.

Now, we have warned the Iranian government in the past about this. We had not received an adequate response from them, and you've seen now President Bush, over the last several weeks, having decided that we will detain those Iranian military and intelligence officials in Iraq who are responsible for this. Obviously, we wish Iraq -- Iran to cease and desist. Iran is not playing the type of role that most other countries are, in Iraq.

Most countries like the United States want to see Iraq stay together as a unitary state. They want to see the problems between the Shia and the Sunni be resolved, but Iran seems to be stoking those problems -- igniting them. And so, that's the basic -- that's the basic allegation that we're making about -- against the Iranians. And we hope they're going to have a change of mind.

BLITZER: And the State Department, I take it, is putting together a dossier, a full report that will be declassified and made public going through your arguments, your evidence? Is that right?

BURNS: Well, obviously, we've been making the case for the last several weeks and will continue to make the case to the American people and to the international public that this is a problem. There really is no doubt about it.

You saw an interview, an extraordinary interview, when the ambassador of Iran in Iraq admitted that there are Iranian security operatives on the soil. Now, here's the difference between the U.S. and Iran, Wolf: The United States military forces are there under U.N. authorization. Iran has no right and no authorization to have its military operatives or its intelligence on the soil of Iraq.

BLITZER: Although, yesterday, we heard -- we heard Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, yesterday in an interview with our own Michael Ware, basically equate Iran and the United States, saying he wants both of them to fight what he called their proxy war out of Iraq.