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 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.
“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.
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.