Donald Trump insists that Iran is on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon, despite repeated statements to the contrary from his own intelligence officials. But rather than listen, the U.S. president is twisting reality to suit his plans.
The White House posted a video Wednesday of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March. Gabbard was delivering the Annual Threat Assessment from the U.S. intelligence community.
“In the past year, we’ve seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus,” Gabbard says in the clip. “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
But the clip conveniently leaves out what Gabbard said just a few moments before that soundbite. As shown in Gabbard’s full testimony, the text of which is available on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence website, she actually says Iran is not close to developing a nuclear weapon.
“The [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,” Gabbard said immediately before the quote posted by the White House.
As Donald Trump seemingly rampages closer to ordering U.S. forces to attack Iran, he has sidelined Gabbard in his decision-making process. Trump has gone so far as to say he “didn’t care” about his own government’s assessment that Iran is still years away from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Instead, Trump says Iran is“very close to having it,” parroting rhetoric from the Israeli government, which has repeatedly insisted on Iran’s burgeoning nuclear capabilities as a flimsy justification for the massive military operation that has already killed at least 639 people, according to human rights activists.
Gabbard, for her part, has caved willingly enough: Gabbard told CNN Tuesday that Trump “was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March.” So it seems that Trump didn’t need to edit Gabbard’s words, after all—she’s more than happy to lie for him on her own.
To be clear, this entire horrific situation could have been avoided if Trump had kept the U.S. in the Iran nuclear deal. Trump left the agreement in 2018 simply because it had been forged under his predecessor, President Barack Obama.
The post Trump Edits Tulsi Gabbard’s Words to Suit His Iran Policy appeared first on New Republic.
