| |
Gabbard: Iran Government Still Intact 03/19 06:13
The U.S. government's top intelligence official told lawmakers Wednesday
that Iran's government "appears to be intact but largely degraded" yet
repeatedly dodged questions about whether President Donald Trump had been
warned about the fallout from the weeks-old war, including Iran's attacks on
Gulf nations and its effective closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government's top intelligence official told
lawmakers Wednesday that Iran's government "appears to be intact but largely
degraded" yet repeatedly dodged questions about whether President Donald Trump
had been warned about the fallout from the weeks-old war, including Iran's
attacks on Gulf nations and its effective closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, also stated in
prepared remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee that U.S. attacks on Iran
last year had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program and that there had been no
effort since then to rebuild that capability.
The statement was notable given Trump's repeated assertions that a war with
Iran was necessary to head off what he said was an imminent threat from the
Islamic Republic. Gabbard pointedly said that conclusion was the president's
alone to draw as she declined to directly answer whether the intelligence
community had likewise assessed that Iran's nuclear system presented an
imminent risk to the United States.
"It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is
and is not an imminent threat," she said at one point.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia shot back: "It is precisely your
responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States."
The testimony came at the first of two congressional hearings held each year
to offer the public a glimpse into the largely secret operations of the
government's intelligence agencies and the threats they confront.
The hearings this week take place at a time of scrutiny over the war with
Iran and heightened concerns about terrorism at home after recent attacks at a
Michigan synagogue and a Virginia university. Wednesday's hearing also came a
day after the resignation of Joe Kent as director of the National
Counterterrorism Center. Kent said he could not "in good conscience" back the
war and did not agree that Iran posed an imminent threat.
But the hours-long hearing offered few revelations from Gabbard, who
repeatedly declined to discuss conversations with Trump, or other senior
intelligence officials who testified.
"I am very disappointed," said an exasperated Sen. Mark Warner, the top
Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It's the only one time of year
the public gets to hear from you guys in this kind of setting."
Gabbard deflected questions about intelligence given to Trump
A frequent line of questioning for Democrats: What intelligence, if any, had
been given to Trump about the war's potential consequences? Trump, for
instance, has said he was surprised that Iran responded to strikes from the
United States by attacking Arab nations and has been contending with the
economic impact of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a body of
water connecting the Persian Gulf to the world's oceans and a vital passageway
for oil and gas.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X that Trump
was "fully briefed" on the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz and
that the Pentagon has been planning for the possibility of Iran closing it "for
DECADES."
But Trump's plan to secure the waterway is unclear, especially after he said
this week that NATO and most other allies had rejected his calls to help secure
it. Iran has said the strait is open except to the U.S. and its allies.
Democrats got few direct answers when they pressed administration officials
on what Trump understood about that possibility, with Gabbard saying she would
not divulge her conversations with him and CIA Director John Ratcliffe
observing that he had been in countless briefings with the president.
"We're trying to figure out if the president knew what the downside was of
the Strait of Hormuz being closed," said Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat.
"Did he know this was going to happen or did he just disregard it?"
Gabbard appeared to try to thread a needle between emphasizing the
intelligence community's views of Iran's risks -- she said, for instance, that
internal tensions would continue to increase even if the regime's leadership
remained intact -- and not completely echoing the president's arguments of an
imminent threat.
At one point, Warner noted that Gabbard, in her prepared written statement
submitted to the committee, said Iran's nuclear enrichment program had been
obliterated in strikes last year, but her opening remarks on Wednesday did not
use that language.
He asked whether she had omitted that reference to conform to Trump's claims
of an imminent threat. Gabbard insisted that she had skipped some of her
written statement in the interest of time.
Trump has sought to distance himself from Kent. Ratcliffe tried to do the
same Wednesday when he was asked whether intelligence supported Kent's
assessment that Iran was not an imminent threat. "The intelligence reflects the
contrary," Ratcliffe said.
Questions about other attacks and Gabbard's presence at an FBI search
Gabbard and Ratcliffe fielded the majority of questions, but other witnesses
included the heads of the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence
Agency, as well as FBI Director Kash Patel, who was pressed about the terrorism
threat amid a spate of attacks this month. Those include a man with a past
terrorism conviction who opened fire inside an Old Dominion University
classroom in Virginia and a Lebanese-born man in Michigan who drove his car
into a synagogue.
One subject that did not receive attention: a deadly missile strike on an
elementary school in Iran, which people familiar with the matter have said the
U.S. likely carried out as a result of outdated intelligence.
Apart from Iran, Gabbard was pressed on her presence at an FBI search in
January of the main election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, where agents seized
voter data related to the 2020 presidential election. Her appearance at a
domestic law enforcement operation raised eyebrows given that Gabbard's office
is meant to focus squarely on foreign threats.
Warner described her appearance there as part of an "organized effort to
misuse her national security powers to interfere in domestic politics and
potentially provide a pretext for the president's unconstitutional efforts to
seize control of the upcoming elections."
Gabbard responded that she was present for the search at the request of the
president but did not participate, though she later said she helped to oversee
it.
The House Intelligence Committee will hold its own threats hearing on
Thursday.
|
|
