Jerusalem ? Israel on Tuesday differed with a U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran has shelved its nuclear arms project in 2003, saying it thinks that Iran is still working on acquiring a bomb.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who visited the Pentagon last week, said Iran has probably restarted its nuclear weapons program.

“It’s apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program for a certain period of time,” Barak said. “But in our estimation, since then it has apparently continued its program to produce a nuclear weapon.

He added that such intelligence reports were made “in an environment of high uncertainty.”

“We cannot allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the globe, even if it is from our greatest friend,” Barak said.

Israeli military intelligence has estimated that Iran could attain nuclear capability as early as 2009, and Israeli officials have consistently warned of an imminent threat from Iran, whose president has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

Responding to the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, Israeli officials said that action is still necessary to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which they said remains the goal of the Iranian program.

Israeli analysts said the Israeli and American intelligence estimates stemmed from different interpretations of the data.

“The assessment, not the raw intelligence, is different,” said Gerald Steinberg, an expert on nuclear proliferation at Bar-Ilan University. “Israel does a worst-case analysis: What is the shortest time, given the information we have, that Iran might be able to produce enough enriched uranium. The Americans say we haven’t seen the evidence, Israel is saying it’s a hidden program we don’t have access to.”