(AFP) – The head of US intelligence declined again Thursday to endorse President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran posed an “imminent” threat before the United States and Israel launched military strikes. Testifying on the war in the Middle East before the House Intelligence Committee, Tulsi Gabbard doubled down on her claim from a day earlier that this determination is “the responsibility of the president” — a position that had already drawn sharp pushback from Democrats.
As with her appearance before senators on Wednesday, the hearing underscored persistent questions on Capitol Hill over the administration’s justification for the war — and the extent to which it aligns with the intelligence community’s own conclusions. “If the president can determine (to) ignore what you’re doing, why do you guys even have a job?” California Democrat Jimmy Gomez asked after Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Trump ultimately decides on the urgency of a threat.
The exchange capped a hearing dominated by efforts to pin down whether any intelligence supported Trump’s justification for the conflict, now entering its third week. “Not one of your agencies has produced a single report saying that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States,” Jim Himes, the panel’s top Democrat, told Gabbard. Gabbard, who coordinates the global security information brought to Trump as his director of national intelligence, was previously an outspoken opponent of war with Iran as a Democratic congresswoman.
She sidestepped repeated questions from Democrats on her own view of the immediacy of the danger posed by Iran, allowing only that she had delivered the intelligence community’s “objective analysis” to the president.
At other points, she appeared to signal increased uncertainty about the direction Iran’s depleted leadership would take following the war’s opening strikes. She said the country’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, had been “very severely” injured in an Israeli attack, adding that decision-making in Tehran was now less clear than it had been two months ago. “That’s an accurate assessment,” she confirmed when asked if US officials were now less certain about Iran’s intentions.
The hearing also highlighted tensions between Washington and Israel over the conduct of the war. Gabbard acknowledged that the two allies have differing objectives, with Israel focused on dismantling Iran’s leadership while the United States is targeting its missile and naval capabilities. Pressed on Israel’s decision to strike Iranian energy infrastructure despite Trump urging restraint, she said: “I don’t have an answer for that.”
The testimony comes amid growing scrutiny of the intelligence underpinning the war, particularly after the resignation of Joe Kent, a senior counterterrorism official who argued in a letter to Trump that Iran did not pose an imminent threat. Gabbard distanced herself from Kent’s claims, saying only that “he said a lot of things in that letter” and emphasizing that the president makes decisions based on intelligence assessments provided to him.
Trump has repeatedly said he ordered the attack on Iran alongside Israel on February 28 because of an “imminent threat.” Trump previously said that a June 2025 US bombing raid on Iran had completely destroyed the country’s nuclear sites, but since his latest war he has maintained that Tehran was nonetheless weeks away from a nuclear bomb and that he had to act. The UN nuclear watchdog and most observers have not supported the finding of an imminent nuclear bomb by Iran, which was negotiating with Trump’s envoys on a deal in the days before the attack.
– Frankie TAGGART
© 2024 AFP
