By wplog

Published Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007 | 10:11 a.m.

Updated Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 2:14 p.m.

WASHINGTON — It seemed like a long shot a year ago when then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid introduced a bill with a few Democratic senators to require the Bush administration to put its cards on the table about Iran.

As my colleague J. Patrick Coolican and I wrote back in June of 2006 , Reid, who had voted to authorize the Iraq war, didn’t want to be burned again by faulty intelligence.

But the provisions in that bill did become law, and after pushing by Congress the long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iran released this week has consumed Washington.

The Washington press has been reporting that the report said the Iranians had stopped their nuclear ambitions in 2003, leaving questions as to why Bush continued the hard-line rhetoric, according to the Washington Post and many other news outlets.

Bush spent most of a news conference this morning defending his views. Reid told reporters yesterday the time has come for a “surge of diplomacy with Iran.”

As for the report, Reid said, “I asked for it because I did not want another run up, which the president proved he is very good at doing beginning the Iraq war.”