Trump, US intelligence split on Iran, Gabbard sidelined
3 Min Read
Trump says Iran is weeks from a nuclear weapon, contradicting US intelligence assessments.
-
In this undated photo, the IAEA logo appears on tempered glass at the headquarters in Vienna. (AP)
A sharp divide has opened between US President Donald Trump and the US intelligence community over Iran’s nuclear progress, as Trump asserts that Tehran is just "weeks away" from acquiring a nuclear weapon, a claim not supported by current US assessments.
According to intelligence officials and Senate sources cited by NBC, the official US intelligence assessment on Iran remains unchanged since March, when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that Iran had not decided to pursue a nuclear bomb, despite holding a large stockpile of enriched uranium.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner, confirmed this position again on Wednesday, stating that he received an updated briefing reaffirming that conclusion this week.
“So far, at least, the intelligence community has stood by its conclusion that Iran is not moving toward a nuclear weapon,” Warner told reporters. “If that has changed, we need to see the facts.”
Trump and Netanyahu present accelerated threat claims
US President Trump, however, contradicted that stance during remarks on Wednesday, claiming Iran was just "a few weeks" away from having a nuclear weapon. Israeli Occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the warning, telling Fox News that Iran was carrying out a “secret plan” to build a bomb within months.
“The intel we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear,” Netanyahu said. “They were marching very quickly... certainly less than a year.”
Gabbard, a former Democratic presidential candidate appointed by Trump to lead the intelligence community, has largely remained out of the public eye since her March testimony before Congress, which emphasized that Iran had not yet taken the decisive step to build a weapon.
In that testimony, she stated that Iran possessed uranium enriched far beyond civilian levels but was not actively weaponizing it.
Trump publicly dismissed her remarks on Tuesday, saying, “I don’t care what she said,” effectively signaling that Gabbard has been politically sidelined from influencing the administration’s current Iran posture.
Senior intelligence aides have confirmed that she is no longer leading White House briefings on the matter, as Trump increasingly leans on Israeli intelligence and Defense Department hawks.
The IAEA reported that Iran has around 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, a level far beyond civilian energy requirements, while weapons-grade uranium requires 90% enrichment.
However, producing fissile material is only part of the process. Iran would still need to design, assemble, and test a nuclear device and develop a reliable delivery system. Most Western analysts estimate that this process would take several months to more than a year.
“Iran is not weeks away from a nuclear weapon,” one US weapons expert said. “But it is weeks away from having enough fissile material for one.”
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi acknowledged earlier this month that Iran is the only non-nuclear state producing uranium at 60% enrichment. Yet in a more recent CNN interview, Grossi said inspectors have no evidence of a systematic weaponization effort underway.
