Washington, DC – Tulsi Gabbard, the director of US Nationwide Intelligence, mentioned that the US intelligence group had assessed that Iran was not rebuilding its nuclear enrichment capabilities following US and Israeli assaults final 12 months.
The revelation on Wednesday appeared to undercut one in every of President Donald Trump’s key justifications for becoming a member of Israel in launching the latest war towards Iran.
Really helpful Tales
record of three objectsfinish of record
Trump and his prime officers have repeatedly cited Iran’s nuclear ambitions as one of many major causes for abandoning ongoing diplomatic talks in favour of army motion.
“Because of Operation Midnight Hammer,” Gabbard mentioned in written testimony to the Senate intelligence committee, referencing the June 2025 US strikes on Iran’s nuclear services, “Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated”.
“There have been no efforts since then to attempt to rebuild their enrichment functionality,” Gabbard mentioned within the written testimony.
Notably, Gabbard didn’t learn that portion of her testimony, which was offered to members of the committee, throughout her publicly televised oral testimony. When pressed on why she omitted the portion, Gabbard mentioned merely that she didn’t have sufficient time. She didn’t deny the evaluation.
“You selected to omit the components that contradict Trump,” Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, responded.
Trump has repeatedly mentioned the June 2025 assaults, which got here on the finish of a 12-day warfare between Israel and Iran, had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capability, whilst he warned that Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions offered an instantaneous risk to the US.
Tehran has for years denied it’s searching for a nuclear weapon. Nuclear and arms screens have maintained that even when Tehran have been searching for a nuclear weapon, it didn’t symbolize a short- or medium-term risk.
The international minister of Oman, who had mediated the newest spherical of US-Iran oblique nuclear talks forward of the warfare, has refuted Trump officers’ claims that the latest negotiations weren’t yielding any progress.
The Guardian newspaper additionally reported this week that the UK’s nationwide safety adviser, Jonathan Powell, had attended the ultimate session of talks and assessed that the Iranian place didn’t justify an instantaneous rush to warfare, citing sources conversant in the state of affairs.
The administration has not settled on any single justification for launching the warfare, additionally pointing to Iran’s ballistic capabilities, its potential risk to Israel and US forces within the Center East, and the totality of the Iranian authorities’s actions because the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The idea of an “imminent risk” is important in figuring out the legality of Trump’s choice to strike a sovereign nation beneath worldwide legislation.
Additionally it is vital for US domestic law, beneath which presidents can commit the army solely in cases of instant self-defence. Solely Congress can formally declare warfare or authorise prolonged army campaigns.
Iran’s authorities ‘intact however largely degraded’
The White Home mentioned earlier this week that Iran’s ballistic missile capability was “functionally destroyed”, with the Iranian navy “successfully destroyed” and the US and Israel dominating the nation’s airspace.
Consultants have assessed that Iran nonetheless maintains the army capability to inflict vital injury within the area, and it has continued to wield its army affect over the Strait of Hormuz.
Gabbard, in the meantime, supplied a extra sober evaluation than the White Home, saying that regardless of the killings of Iranian supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prime army officers, and most lately the pinnacle of the Supreme Nationwide Safety Council, Ali Larijani and the intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, “the regime in Iran seems to be intact however largely degraded by Operation Epic Fury”.
“Even so, Iran and its proxies stay able to and proceed to assault US and allied pursuits in the Center East. If a hostile regime survives, it should search to start a years-long effort to rebuild its missiles and UAV [drone] forces,” she mentioned.
Gabbard additionally listed Iran, alongside Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan, as among the many nations “researching and creating an array of novel, superior, or conventional missile supply programs, with nuclear and traditional payloads, that put our homeland inside vary”.
The Washington, DC-based Arms Management Affiliation has mentioned that US intelligence as of 2025 had mentioned it might take Iran till 2035 or longer to develop a missile able to hitting the US, if it did certainly search to take action.
Excessive-profile resignation
Gabbard spoke a day after a prime official in her company, Joe Kent, the director of the US Nationwide Counterterrorism Heart, resigned in opposition to Trump’s warfare with Iran.
In his resignation, Kent mentioned that Iran “posed no imminent risk” to the US and that Trump’s choice to enter the warfare went towards his “America First” pledges.
Kent is the primary high-profile member of the Trump administration to step down in response to the warfare.
Gabbard herself had beforehand been a vocal opponent to indefinite army engagement within the Center East and warfare with Iran. A former member of the US Home of Representatives from Hawaii, she left the Democratic Celebration and supported Trump, partially, resulting from his anti-war vows.
Nonetheless, in a put up on X on Tuesday, Gabbard defended Trump’s choice to go to warfare.
“As our Commander in Chief, he’s chargeable for figuring out what’s and isn’t an imminent risk, and whether or not or to not take motion he deems needed to guard the security and safety of our troops, the American folks and our nation,” she mentioned.
She mentioned her company’s function was to funnel US intelligence to Trump.
“After rigorously reviewing all the knowledge earlier than him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent risk and he took motion based mostly on that conclusion,” she mentioned.
