Iran war was started on a lie, say two of Trump’s top intelligence officials

Trump lies incessantly. Always has. Always will. He’ll never stop lying until his last falsehood gasping breath.

All of Trump’s lies are despicable. But the lies Trump told about why he started a war with Iran are beyond despicable, because they’ve cost the lives of thousands of people so far, including thirteen American service members.

Trump has thrown out a variety of reasons for the Iran war. None of them make much sense.

However, his favorite reason, because it is the scariest, is that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States because Iran was close to having a nuclear weapon that could reach our country via an Iranian ICBM, intercontinental ballistic missile.

This claim has been made over and over by Trump and his sycophants who appear on Sunday talk shows and other news outlets. “We had to attack Iran so Americans wouldn’t be hit with a nuclear weapon,” goes the Trump administration party line.

After today, that claim will be harder to make, since it was undermined by statements from two of Trump’s top intelligence officials: Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, and Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Both obviously have access to the most sensitive intelligence about Iran that the United States possesses.

And both debunked Trump’s assertion that Iran was an imminent threat.

Today Gabbard testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Her written prepared remarks included this statement about Iran:

The regime in Iran appears to be intact but largely degraded by Operation Epic Fury. Its regional power projection capabilities have been destroyed, leaving limited options. Prior to the current operations, Iran’s strategic position had been significantly degraded. The US led maximum pressure campaign and snapback of European sanctions added additional pressure to an already bleak Iranian economy, resulting in mass protests earlier this year that Tehran suppressed by killing thousands of protesters. Even if the regime remains intact, internal tensions are likely to increase as Iran’s economy worsens.

Even so, Iran and its proxies remain capable of and continue to attack US and allied interests in the Middle East. If a hostile regime survives, it will seek to begin a yearslong effort to rebuild its missiles and UAV forces.

As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement. We continue to monitor for any early indicators on what position the current or any new leadership in Iran will take with regard to authorizing a nuclear weapons program.

So last summer’s bombing of Iran by American forces obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. No efforts have been made by Iran to rebuild that program. Currently there’s no indication that Iran has authorized a nuclear weapons program. Thus Trump lied about Iran being close to having a nuclear weapon that could strike the United States.

Why, then, did Trump start a war with Iran? Kent supplied an answer in his letter announcing his resignation of director of the National Counterterrorism Center, which he prefaced with a statement on X that said in part:

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. 

Here’s Kent’s letter: