Iran does not yet have nuclear weapon-U.S. official

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The United States does not believe Iran has a nuclear weapon at this time but the danger Tehran will acquire them is of major concern, U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte said on Thursday.

Negroponte, national director of intelligence, also told a Senate committee looking into the range of threats to the United States that al Qaeda is still plotting and preparing for attacks on the United States.

"We judge that Tehran probably does not yet have a nuclear weapon and probably has not yet produced or acquired the necessary fissile material," Negroponte said in prepared testimony to the Senate intelligence committee.

But, he added, the danger was that Iran would get a nuclear weapon it could put into a ballistic missile.

He said al Qaeda's "core elements still plot and make preparations for terrorist strikes against the (U.S.) homeland and other targets from bases in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area."

The hearing was first in which the Senate oversight panel has taken testimony from the national director of intelligence, a job that was created by post-Sept. 11 congressional reforms.

Along with Negroponte, the directors of the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the intelligence units of the State Department and Department of Homeland Security were scheduled to testify.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's annual worldwide threats hearing also gave lawmakers their first chance to grill intelligence leaders publicly about President George W. Bush's domestic eavesdropping program at the National Security Agency.

The Senate committee was looking at the proliferation threat posed by Iran on the same day the International Atomic Energy Agency considered whether to report the Islamic republic to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program.

Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are purely to develop nuclear power.