Two top intelligence officials directly contradicted one of the Trump administration’s justifications for going to war with Iran, repeating on Wednesday the intelligence community’s conclusion that Iran was years away from developing missiles capable of hitting the United States.
Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, would not say whether the intelligence community had determined that Iran would be able to launch such long-range missiles within six months.
Ms. Gabbard said that Iran “could” combine technology from its existing space program with its missile development capabilities to “begin to develop” an intercontinental ballistic missile “before 2035, should Tehran attempt to pursue that capability.”
But when pressed by Senator Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, Ms. Gabbard refused to provide an assessment of the threat Iran posed.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” Ms. Gabbard said, adding that such assessments were solely the discretion of the president.
Ms. Gabbard affirmed the conclusion reached by the Trump administration’s Defense Intelligence Agency last year that it would be a decade before Iran could get past the technological hurdles to produce weapons capable of reaching the United States.
Likewise, Mr. Ratcliffe did not give a timeline when asked whether Iran would have been able to strike the United States within six months, instead focusing on its ability to reach as far as Europe and threaten U.S. bases and interests in the region.
Ms. Gabbard noted that the agencies she oversees monitor and work to deter the development of nuclear-capable weapons among U.S. adversaries.
“The intelligence community assesses that Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan have been researching and developing an array of novel, advanced or traditional missile delivery systems with nuclear and conventional payloads that put our homeland within range,” she said.
Of the nations she mentioned, Ms. Gabbard said that China and Russia had systems “capable of penetrating or bypassing U.S. missile defenses,” North Korea’s missiles could already reach U.S. soil, and Pakistan’s missiles “potentially” could as well.
Iran, however, which has come under intense bombardment from air and naval strikes since U.S.-Israeli strikes began on Feb. 28, was not presented as one of nations with advanced weapons capabilities.
In his State of the Union address last month, President Trump claimed that Iran was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”
Ms. Gabbard said a new assessment would need to be conducted to determine the extent of the damage in Iran from U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the chairman of the committee, called Iran’s space program a “flimsy cover” for their “intercontinental missile program” and asked if assessments from independent analysts “that Iran could have had a functioning intercontinental missile to threaten the United States in as few as six months” were accurate.
In response, Mr. Ratcliffe said there was good reason to be concerned about Iran’s missile program but did not affirm any timeline. He noted that the Iranians were “gaining experience” in developing longer-range missiles but did not say that their capabilities were mature enough to pose imminent threat to long-range targets beyond the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.
“If Iran were allowed to develop at the IRBM ranges, which is 3,000 kilometers, it would threaten most of Europe,” Mr. Ratcliffe said, referring to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. He added that allowing such a program to grow unimpeded would give Iran a path to develop missiles that could reach the United States. “It’s one of the reasons why degrading Iran’s missile production capabilities that is taking place right now in Operation Epic Fury is so important to our national security,” he added.
Robert Jimison covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on defense issues and foreign policy.
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