President has dismissed verdict by handpicked spy chief, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tulsi Gabbard<\/a>, the US director of national intelligence, delivered a concise verdict during congressional testimony this March: the intelligence community \u201ccontinues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and supreme leader Khomeini [sic] has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As he rushed back to Washington<\/a> on Tuesday morning, Donald Trump swatted aside the assessment from the official that he handpicked to deliver him information from 18 US intelligence agencies. \u201cI don\u2019t care what she said,\u201d said Trump<\/a>. \u201cI think they were very close to having one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s assessment aligned him with Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>, the Israeli prime minister, who has warned that Iran\u2019s \u201cimminent\u201d plans to produce nuclear weapons required a pre-emptive strike from Israel \u2013 and, he hopes, from the United States \u2013 in order to shut down the Iranian uranium enrichment program for good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also isolates Trump\u2019s spy chief, whom he nominated specifically because of her skepticism for past US interventions<\/a> in the Middle East and of the broader intelligence community, which he has described as a \u201cdeep state\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabbard sought to tamp down on a schism with Trump, telling CNN that Trump \u201cwas saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March. Unfortunately too many people in the media don\u2019t care to actually read what I said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as the Trump administration<\/a> now appears closer than ever before to a strike on Iran, Gabbard has been left out of key decision-making discussions and her assessments that Iran is not close to a nuclear breakout has become decidedly inconvenient for an administration now mulling a pre-emptive strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!\u201d Trump wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. The US has dispatched another carrier group,<\/a> KC-135 refueling tankers and additional fighter jets\u2002<\/a>to the region. Those assets have been sent to give Trump \u201cmore options\u201d for a direct intervention in the conflict, US media have reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deliberations over the intelligence regarding Iran\u2019s breakout time to a nuclear weapon will be pored over if the US moves forward with a strike that initiates a new foreign conflict for the US that could potentially reshape the Middle East and redefine a Trump presidency that was supposed to end the US era of \u201cforever wars\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel launched airstrikes last week in the wake of an International Atomic Energy Agency report that formally declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations<\/a> for the first time in 20 years and said the country had enriched enough uranium to near weapons grade to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gen Michael Erik Kurilla, the head of US Central Command who has forcefully campaigned for a tougher stance on Iran, told members of the armed services committee in the House of Representatives last week that Iran could have enough weapons-grade uranium for \u201cup to 10 nuclear weapons in three weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet a CNN report on Tuesday challenged that claim. Four sources familiar with a US intelligence assessment said that Iran was \u201cnot actively pursuing a nuclear weapon\u201d and that the country was \u201cup to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n