Mr. Ahmadinejad said that Iran would move ahead with its nuclear enrichment program, adding that the report suggested that the Americans had admitted to a mistake in judging Iran’s program. “But their attitude does not allow them to admit their mistake, and so they have to convey it in other words,” the news agency quoted him as saying. “We tell them, ‘It is all right, and it is enough that you are confessing to your mistakes.’”

Image President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with supporters in Irans Ilam province today. Credit... Mehdi Ghasemi/Associated Press

The report, a National Intelligence Estimate released Monday, concluded that Iran halted a clandestine nuclear arms program in 2003. Iran has contended all along that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it wants to enrich uranium to produce fuel for its nuclear plants.

Mr. Ahmadinejad and other authorities here have ignored the part of the report saying that Iran pursued secret nuclear weapons activities until 2003, and they have addressed only the part that says Iran’s nuclear activities have been for peaceful purposes since then.

Ali Larijani, a former nuclear negotiator and now the representative of Iran’s supreme religious leader at the Supreme National Security Council, said Wednesday that the important part of the report was its indication that the current program was peaceful, ISNA reported. He did not refer to the issue of Iran’s clandestine program cited in the report, but dismissed it indirectly, saying other subjects were included for “ill intentions  otherwise the report would have looked bad.”

The Associated Press reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Ethiopia on Wednesday, said, “It is the very strong view of the administration that the Iranian regime remains a problematic and dangerous regime and that the international community must continue to unite around the Security Council resolutions that it has passed.”