WASHINGTON — The Washington Post today reports on Sen. John Ensign leading his party’s efforts to take a second look at this week’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.

Ensign will introduce legislation next week to form a congressional commission to investigate the report “amid growing backlash from conservatives and neoconservatives unhappy about the assessment that Iran halted a clandestine nuclear weapons program four years ago,” the Post reported.

The newspaper notes the challenge “reflects how quickly the NIE has become politicized, with critics even going after the analysts who wrote it, and shows a split among Republicans.”

Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola said in an email: “When it comes to national security, it is important to remove politics. This proposal would provide an objective view outside of politics. This is about removing politics to ensure national security.”

Nevada’s other senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid, had been instrumental in getting the intelligence community to produce the report, as we noted earlier in the week.