U.S. President Donald Trump rejected the assessment of his own intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, on Friday, insisting that Iran is indeed pursuing nuclear weapons\u2014contrary to the official analysis presented to Congress earlier this year. Speaking to reporters at Morristown Airport in New Jersey, Trump bluntly stated that Gabbard, who currently serves as Director of National Intelligence, was “wrong” in asserting that Iran has not resumed its nuclear weapons program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The disagreement marks a significant split between the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies. In March, Gabbard testified before Congress, saying, \u201cAccording to intelligence assessments, Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.\u201d That position echoed long-standing conclusions by U.S. agencies, which, while concerned about Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities, had not found evidence of an active weapons development effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Gabbard appeared to soften her stance in a post on X (formerly Twitter) Friday, writing that the United States does possess intelligence suggesting Iran could build a nuclear weapon within weeks or months if it chose to. \u201cPresident Trump is right\u2014we must not allow that to happen,\u201d she stated, while accusing the media of taking her March comments out of context to sow division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House confirmed that President Trump is expected to make a decision within two weeks on whether the United States will directly intervene in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has justified recent airstrikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites by claiming that Tehran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran, meanwhile, maintains that its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes only and denies any effort to build nuclear weapons. Iranian officials have dismissed Israeli and U.S. accusations as baseless provocations aimed at escalating regional tensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her March testimony, Gabbard had acknowledged the scale of Iran\u2019s uranium stockpile as \u201cunprecedented for a non-nuclear-armed state.\u201d She also noted that the public discourse around nuclear weapons within Iran was becoming more open, potentially emboldening hardline elements pushing for a weapons program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to sources familiar with the latest intelligence reports, there has been no fundamental change in the assessment since Gabbard\u2019s March testimony. These sources told Reuters that Iran would still need approximately three years to produce a fully functional and deliverable nuclear weapon. Former UN nuclear inspector David Albright supported this timeline, stating that even constructing a basic nuclear device would take Iran at least six months\u2014and that such a device would not be suitable for delivery by missile. A deployable nuclear weapon, he said, would likely require one to two years of additional development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s latest statements are not the first time he has clashed with the U.S. intelligence community. During his first term, Trump frequently dismissed agency findings, particularly regarding Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 election. At one point, he gave more credence to Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s denials than to the consensus of his own intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Trump and Gabbard have long been critical of what they call the \u201cdeep state\u201d within U.S. intelligence, accusing unelected bureaucrats of working to undermine the administration\u2014claims that remain unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Trump prepares for a possible escalation in U.S. involvement in the Middle East, his dismissal of official intelligence on Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions adds another layer of uncertainty to an already volatile situation, raising questions about how foreign policy decisions are being shaped in Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. President Donald Trump rejected the assessment of his own intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, on Friday, insisting that Iran is indeed pursuing nuclear weapons\u2014contrary to the official analysis presented to Congress earlier this year. Speaking to reporters at Morristown Airport in New Jersey, Trump bluntly stated that Gabbard, who currently serves as Director of National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6321,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6315\/revisions\/6321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}