This shouldn’t surprise anyone but it’s sad that this story in today’s Los Angeles Times isn’t banner news in every paper:

U.N. calls U.S. data on Iran’s nuclear aims unreliable

Tips about supposed secret weapons sites and documents with missile designs haven’t panned out, diplomats say.

By Bob Drogin and Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writers

Although international concern is growing about Iran’s nuclear program and its regional ambitions, diplomats here say most U.S. intelligence shared with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has proved inaccurate and none has led to significant discoveries inside Iran.

The officials said the CIA and other Western spy services had provided sensitive information to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency at least since 2002, when Iran’s long-secret nuclear program was exposed. But none of the tips about supposed secret weapons sites provided clear evidence that the Islamic Republic was developing illicit weapons.

“Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that’s come to us has proved to be wrong,” a senior diplomat at the IAEA said. Another official here described the agency’s intelligence stream as “very cold now” because “so little panned out.”

The reliability of U.S. information and assessments on Iran is increasingly at issue as the Bush administration confronts the emerging regional power on several fronts: its expanding nuclear effort, its alleged support for insurgents in Iraq and its backing of Middle East militant groups.

This story will, of course, piss of the Administration because it will undercut its saber-rattling.