The White House flatly denied yesterday a news report which said a secret CIA assessment found no conclusive evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the article was just another "error-filled piece" in a "series of inaccuracy-riddled articles about the Bush administration."

"The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops, and whose articles consistently rely on outright falsehoods to justify his own radical views," she said.

The report, written by New Yorker magazine's investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, said the CIA analysis was based on technical intelligence collected by satellites and on other evidence like measurements of the radioactivity of water samples.

The assessment found no conclusive evidence on the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared publicly, it said.

Hersh's report also disclosed that Vice President Dick Cheney had said privately before the Nov. 7 midterm elections that even if the Democrats win, that would not stop the Bush administration from pursuing a military option with Iran.

The United States has long been accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian program.