President has dismissed verdict by handpicked spy chief, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons
Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, delivered a concise verdict during congressional testimony this March: the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”.
As he rushed back to Washington on Tuesday morning, Donald Trump swatted aside the assessment from the official that he handpicked to deliver him information from 18 US intelligence agencies. “I don’t care what she said,” said Trump. “I think they were very close to having one.”
Trump’s assessment aligned him with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who has warned that Iran’s “imminent” plans to produce nuclear weapons required a pre-emptive strike from Israel – and, he hopes, from the United States – in order to shut down the Iranian uranium enrichment program for good.
It also isolates Trump’s spy chief, whom he nominated specifically because of her skepticism for past US interventions in the Middle East and of the broader intelligence community, which he has described as a “deep state”.
