A war based on a lie

The Trump administration’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. Prior to her testimony, she submitted a written copy of her opening statement. It included the following passage about Iran:

As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement.

In other words, after the Trump administration’s bombing campaign last June, Iran had no ability to enrich uranium. Since then, the Iranian regime has made no efforts to restore its ability to enrich uranium. Without the ability to enrich uranium, Iran cannot produce a nuclear weapon. Gabbard’s testimony was consistent with the views of outside experts.

Curiously, when Gabbard appeared in person, she read most of her opening statement, but skipped over the section above on Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities. Pressed on the omission by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Gabbard claimed she left out that passage because she “recognized that the time was running long.”

Gabbard omitted a key conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that undercuts a core justification for the war that was repeatedly advanced by President Trump.

Trump and his proxies have repeatedly justified the war in Iran by claiming that, absent the decision to launch major combat operations, Iran would have had multiple nuclear weapons within weeks. According to the testimony of Trump’s top intelligence official, these claims were false.

Here are the key statements made in support of the lie:

“They’re probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material, and that’s really dangerous.” — Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, February 22

“If we didn’t hit within two weeks, they would’ve had a nuclear weapon. When crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen.” — Trump, March 4

“And this had to be done. They were very close to a nuclear weapon.“ — Trump, March 7

“They would’ve had a nuclear weapon within 2 weeks to 4 weeks.” — Trump, March 9

“Had we not done this, you would have had a nuclear war that would have evolved into World War III.” — Trump, March 16

“[W]e’re doing very, very well in Iran, knocking the hell out of them. And you have to do that. We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon. They were two weeks away -- in my opinion, two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. — Trump, March 17

At the outset of the war on Iran, on March 1, the White House released a statement characterizing it as an effort “to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime.”

During the hearing, Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) pressed Gabbard on whether the intelligence community assessed that the “nuclear threat” from Iran was “imminent,” as the White House claimed. Gabbard repeatedly dodged the question.

Gabbard said, on the issue of imminence, “the president has to make that determination.” That is false. It is the job of the intelligence community to assess threats, including their severity and imminence. It is the role of the president and Congress to determine how to respond to those assessments.

Clearly, the intelligence community did not assess that the nuclear threat from Iran was imminent because it determined they had no nuclear weapons and were not taking the steps necessary to create one. Joe Kent, who was selected by Trump as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center and reported to Gabbard, resigned on Tuesday. In his resignation letter, Kent wrote that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”

Another tactic Gabbard used to make the views of the intelligence community more politically palatable is to credit the bombings last June with curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But Iran was not building a nuclear weapon before those strikes either. In March 2025, Gabbard also testified that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”

Shortly before bombing Iran in June 2025, Trump was asked about Gabbard’s testimony, which contradicted his claims at the time.

“She’s wrong. My intelligence community is wrong,” Trump said flatly.