March 18 (UPI) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard defended U.S. military strikes on Iran during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday, calling them a strategic success.
Senators challenged Gabbard to reconcile the words of President Donald Trump with the intelligence her department has received on Iran. When pressed, Gabbard yielded that Trump has the final say on what threats the United States faces.
When the United States performed strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June, Trump said Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “obliterated.” Earlier this month, he said Iran’s development of nuclear weapons posed an imminent nuclear threat to national security, justifying military action.
Gabbard affirmed Wednesday that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was “obliterated” in the June strikes.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” Gabbard said. “That is up to the president, based on a volume of information he receives.”
Gabbard was once a vocal opponent of engaging in a war with Iran, even selling shirts that read “No War With Iran” in 2019 while she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Iran is one of the United States’ top adversaries, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s “Annual Threat Assessment” said. China, Russia and North Korea are also on that list.
In the 19 days since the war with Iran began, Gabbard said the Iranian regime “appears to be intact but largely degraded.”
“Even so, Iran and its proxies remain capable of and continue to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East,” Gabbard said. “The IC assesses that if a hostile regime survives it will seek to begin a yearslong effort to rebuild its missiles and UAV forces.”
