The delegation, which set off last week on its unscheduled mission, will wind up its visit this week, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

It was not clear what type of material the Israeli delegation – for the most part military intelligence officers – presented to U.S. officials.
“The U.S. and Israel will also hold additional joint formal meetings on the matter in coming weeks,” the Israeli officials said. “Israel will use these forums to try to persuade the Americans that Iran is trying to development nuclear weapons, and intends to present information classified as top secret for security reasons,” the officials
said.

The U.S. report, released earlier this month, concludes Iran halted its weapons development program in 2003 and that the program remained frozen through at least through the middle of this year. The findings reversed a key conclusion from a 2005 intelligence report that Iran was developing a bomb.

“Israeli officials who have reviewed all known intelligence on Iran’s nuclear activities have concluded that Iran did in fact suspend its atomic weapons development in 2003, after the U.S. invaded Iraq,” the Israeli security officials said.

“But Israel is convinced the Iranians set up a new production line whose details aren’t known fully to Western intelligence agencies,” they said.

Defense establishment sources said this week that Israel accepted 90 to 95 percent of the intelligence material on which the American assessment was based, including the assertion that Iran stopped the development of nuclear weapons in 2003 but was continuing uranium enrichment and the development of long-range weapons.

Israel considers the regime in Tehran to be its biggest threat because of its nuclear ambitions, its long-range missile program and repeated calls by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to wipe Israel off the map.

Iran says its nuclear program is designed to produce energy.

Olmert to ministers: Don’t make declarations about Iran

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting to refrain from making declarations about Iran or the U.S. assessment of its nuclear program on behalf of the cabinet.

Olmert’s rebuke comes the day after Public Security Minister Avi Dichter issued the country’s harshest criticism yet of the U.S. intelligence report, calling it a misconception that threatened to lead to a surprise regional war.

“Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat,” Dichter said in a speech on Saturday.

The prime minister told ministers on Sunday: “I am asking ministers to stop delivering declarations on the Iranian issue and on the U.S. intelligence report. I want to remind you that the cabinet has held deliberations on the matter at the end of which was given the stance of the Israeli government with regard to the Iranian issue.”

“There is no place here for the private declarations of every minister and minister on a subject as sensitive and complicated as this one. These declaration do not help with the struggle against Iran’s nuclear program and do not help our relations with the U.S.”

Earlier this month Olmert insisted that Iran hasn’t abandoned its attempts to develop a nuclear weapon