President Donald Trump is at odds with the U.S. intelligence community and his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, over an assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and its intentions in testimony she gave earlier this year before a Senate committee.
Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran did have an “unprecedented” level of weapons-grade uranium, but “is not building a nuclear weapon.”
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday on his early return from the Group of 7 Summit in Canada to deal with the escalating fighting between Israel and Iran. “I think they were very close to having one.”
The intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” Gabbard told lawmakers in March.
“In the past year, we’ve seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus,” she said.
And she also acknowledged Tehran’s build-up of nuclear fuel. “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
But American intelligence assessments continue to show that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon and was still years away from being able to launch one, according to a CNN report Tuesday. That is a direct contradiction of Israel’s justification for launching a massive airstrike last week on its longtime nemesis, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contending Tehran was on the verge of having a nuclear weapon.
And last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report indicating concern over Iran’s enrichment efforts, but said there was not enough evidence that Tehran was actively building a bomb.
“The Agency has no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear programme of the type described above in Iran and notes the statements of the highest officials in Iran that the use of nuclear weapons is incompatible with Islamic Law,” according to the IAEA report.
Netanyahu has defended the attack on Tehran, warning that “if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.” And in an interview Sunday on Fox News, he said the regime “would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months and certainly less than a year.”
“The intel we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear, was absolutely clear that they were working in a secret plan to weaponize the uranium,” Netanyahu said when asked about Gabbard’s assessment, according to the New York Post.
“We saw enough uranium, enriched uranium for nine bombs.”
Trump last week indicated support for Israel’s airstrike on Iran, repeatedly expressing frustration that nuclear talks between the U.S and the regime were unsuccessful and issuing an ominous warning on his Truth Social platform after the attack that “it would be much worse than anything they know” unless they made a deal.
And early Tuesday, before leaving the summit in Canada, the president repeatedly insisted “IRAN CANNOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON” in several posts on his Truth Social platform. He posted the same statement at least four times, which seems to indicate the President has access to additional information about the regime’s nuclear capabilities.
This escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran is occurring seven years after Trump tore up a nuclear deal reached under the Obama administration, saying at the time it “was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
And there’s possibly no end in sight to this current conflict. Netanyahu said last week the operation would continue “for as many days as it takes” to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat, CNN reported, but Iran has an extensive and well-protected nuclear operation, so the bombing could stretch on for weeks or even longer.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Israel, which is not, is estimated to possess a nuclear weapons stockpile of at least 90 warheads, as The New York Times reported this week.
