United States director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, yesterday backtracked on Iran’s capability to produce nuclear weapons, saying it could produce within weeks.
This came after she testified before Congress that the country was not building them.
Gabbard said her March testimony – in which she said Iran had a stock of materials but was not building these weapons – had been taken out of context by “dishonest media”.
Her change of position came after President Donald Trump said she was “wrong” and that intelligence showed Iran had a “tremendous amount of material” and could have a nuclear weapon “within months”.
Iran has always said that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and that it has never sought to develop a nuclear weapon.
On Thursday Trump said he was giving Tehran the “maximum” of two weeks to reach a deal on its nuclear activities with Washington. He said he would soon decide whether the US should join Israel’s strikes on Iran.
On Saturday morning, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country was “absolutely ready for a negotiated solution” on their nuclear programme but that Iran “cannot go through negotiations with the US when our people are under bombardment”.
In her post on social media, Gabbard said US intelligence showed Iran is “at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months”.
“President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree,” she added.
Gabbard shared a video of her full testimony before Congress in March, where she said US intelligence agencies had concluded Iran was not building nuclear weapons.
Experts also determined Iran had not resumed its suspended 2003 nuclear weapons programme, she added in the clip, even as the nation’s stockpile of enriched uranium – a component of such weapons – was at an all-time high.
Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the global nuclear watchdog – expressed concern about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons.
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