Author Seymour Hersh has reported in The New Yorker magazine that Israeli spies have been operating in Iran as recently as the summer, and that they gathered intelligence showing that Tehran has developed and tested a trigger device for a nuclear bomb.

A report of the Israeli intelligence data is being used by White House hawks within the Bush administration to "prove the White House's theory that the Iranians are on track" to produce a nuclear weapon," Hersh wrote, citing an unnamed former senior intelligence official.

Hersh cites unnamed current and former military officers and consultants as confirming the report of Israeli spies operating in Iran.

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The article
article was published Monday on the magazine's Web site.

"The problem is that no one can verify it," the ex-intelligence official was quoted as having told Hersh, in a reference to the reported Israeli intelligence data on nuclear triggers.

"We don't know who the Israeli source is," the official said. "The briefing says the Iranians are testing trigger mechanisms" [simulating a zero-yield nuclear explosion without any weapons-grade materials] "but there are no diagrams, no significant facts. Where is the test site? How often have they done it? How big is the warhead? A breadbox or a refrigerator? They don't have that."

Despite the Israeli report, the CIA is standing by its position that it as yet has found no conclusive evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Hersh wrote

The White House has asked to see the "raw" - the original, unanalyzed and unvetted - Israeli intelligence, Hersh quoted a Pentagon official as saying.

"Such 'stovepiping' of intelligence had led to faulty conclusions about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction during the buildup to the 2003 Iraq war," Hersh wrote.

The Pentagon consultant was further quoted as telling Hersh that, while there may be pressure from the Israelis to allow an Israeli strike against Iran, "they won't do anything on their own without our green light."

That assurance, the Pentagon official said, "comes from the Cheney shop. It's [Vice President Dick] Cheney himself who is saying, "We're not going to leave you high and dry, but don't go without us.'"

Hersh quoted a senior European diplomat as agreeing. "For Israel, it is a question of life or death. The United States does not want to go into Iran, but, if Israel feels more and more cornered, there may be no other choice," the official said.