President Donald Trump on Friday hit out at his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, on her views about Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump said Gabbard “is wrong” about Iran’s efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon. “Well then, my intelligence community is wrong,” Trump told reporters after he was asked about the US intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.
Gabbard is a former Democrat who defected and joined Trump during last year’s presidential election. In turn she was awarded and selected to run the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Observers claim that she was awarded the post for her enmity for the nonpartisan experts and civil servants who Trump derides as the “deep state.”
Also Read: Iran Says ‘No Talks Until Bombing Stops’, EU Urges US-Iran Dialogue, No Breakthrough In Geneva Talks
On Friday, Trump was asked by reporters to comment about current claims about Iran’s nuclear program and compare them with the earlier allegations of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, which led to the invasion of Iraq. Trump answered that he always believed that there were no weapons in Iraq, which is the main difference with Iran’s nuclear program.
The president arrived in New Jersey, where he will spend the weekend at one of his golf resorts. He was speaking to the reporters while huddling with his aides.
But he then pivoted to claiming that Iran has a “tremendous amount” of nuclear material, which he said could permit the Islamic Republic to produce a working weapon “within a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months.”
The interesting thing about the whole situation is that Trump’s claims about Iran’s nuclear program are in direct contradiction to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She had earlier testified before Congress during a hearing on worldwide national security threats.
The former democrat and former Hawaii congresswoman, in her testimony, said that the US Intelligence Community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
She noted that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had “not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”
However, she acknowledged that Tehran’s stockpile of weapons-grade uranium was at levels that were “unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
Also Read: Explained: Why Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Is the Top Target of Israel
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
Lalit Modi sparked controversy after sharing a video from Vijay Mallya’s birthday party, where the…
Caught on CCTV, a robbery attempt in Patiala was foiled after a maid drugged the…
Hrithik Roshan stole the spotlight at cousin Eshaan Roshan’s wedding in Mumbai as videos of…
