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Analysis | Washington Politics<\/p>\n
Branko Marcetic
\nResponsibleStatecraft.org<\/p>\n
The U.S. intelligence agencies\u2019 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) is billed as an opportunity \u201cfor the American people to receive an unvarnished and unbiased account of the real and present dangers that our nation faces.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark), chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who personally presided over a public hearing this year to hear its conclusions.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s too bad neither he nor almost any other senator who sits on the committee seemed to pay attention to it, if current discourse over the Israel-Iran war is anything to go by.<\/p>\n
On March 25, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard delivered the U.S. Intelligence Community\u2019s (IC) collective conclusions covering a broad swath of national security issues and geographic areas \u2014 including the threat posed by\u00a0Iran<\/a>\u00a0and its possible development of a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n \u201cThe IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,\u201d she told the committee bluntly. Gabbard was echoing an assessment that U.S. intelligence agencies have been making\u00a0since 2007<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet despite this testimony, most of the committee members have issued statements over the past days and weeks that have entirely ignored this assessment, instead painting a picture of an Iran speeding toward a nuclear bomb, and Israel\u2019s\u00a0self-proclaimed \u201cpreemptive\u201d war<\/u><\/a>\u00a0against Iran as an unavoidable and understandable act of self-defense.<\/p>\n That includes Cotton himself, who has since hearing that testimony repeatedly issued statements and given interviews that make reference to Iran\u2019s supposed \u201cdevelopment of nuclear weapons<\/u><\/a>,\u201d its \u201cnuclear weapons program<\/u><\/a>,\u201d and that it was \u201con the path to nuclear weapons<\/u><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In a recent Face the Nation\u00a0interview<\/u><\/a>, Cotton equated Iran\u2019s uranium enrichment with a \u201cnuclear weapons program.\u201d A week ago, he\u00a0claimed<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201cconfirmed that Iran\u2019s terrorist regime is actively working towards a nuclear weapon,\u201d wildly twisting Hegseth\u2019s actual, heavily qualified\u00a0response<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to a point-blank question about whether Tehran was building a nuke: \u201cThere are plenty of indications that they have been moving their way toward something that looks a lot like a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n This week, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) went further and actually\u00a0cited<\/u><\/a>\u00a0his position \u201cas a member of the Intelligence Committee\u201d to make the charge that \u201cindependent experts had \u201ctime and time again\u201d determined that Iran was \u201cusing that program for military purposes\u201d and \u201cvery quickly rushing towards the development, we have to assume, of a nuclear weapon\u201d \u2014 even though Young had been told three months earlier that U.S. intelligence agencies believe the exact opposite.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Young has\u00a0pointed to<\/u><\/a>\u00a0\u201cIran\u2019s nuclear ambitions\u201d to justify backing Israel\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Iranian regime has clearly been preparing to make nuclear weapons for years,\u201d read a\u00a0statement<\/u><\/a>\u00a0from Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who, as\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0launched its attack,\u00a0said<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that \u201cIran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it\u2019s just simply gotten to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) has similarly\u00a0called<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the nuclear program \u201ca very real threat to the United States,\u201d and, while\u00a0tweeting<\/u><\/a>\u00a0out his support of the Israeli war, claimed Iranian leaders had \u201cadvanced their nuclear weapon capacity,\u201d insisting they \u201ccannot have a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA nuclear Iran was always an unacceptable outcome,\u201d\u00a0tweeted<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who backed Israel \u201ctak[ing] action to ensure Iran could not add a nuclear weapon to its arsenal.\u201d Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has reposted a\u00a0spate<\/u><\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0tweets<\/u><\/a>\u00a0claiming<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that Iran was\u00a0close<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to obtaining a nuclear weapon and\u00a0needed<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to be immediately neutralized, and at one point approvingly\u00a0quoted<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Trump that \u201cyou can\u2019t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n It was little better on the Democratic side of the aisle. \u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,\u201d\u00a0tweeted<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) as Israeli bombs rained down on Tehran. Elsewhere, Kelly has\u00a0said<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that Iran has \u201cbeen on this trajectory for a while, to be able to build a nuclear weapon,\u201d and\u00a0suggested<\/u><\/a>\u00a0he might back a direct U.S. attack on Iran\u2019s underground nuclear facilities, because he \u201cwould like to see Iran’s nuclear capability to be completely disarmed.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a\u00a0longtime<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Democratic hawk<\/u><\/a>\u00a0on Iran,\u00a0referenced<\/u><\/a>\u00a0\u201cIran\u2019s nuclear ambitions\u201d in the same breadth that he announced his support for \u201cIsrael\u2019s right to defend itself\u201d last week.<\/p>\n \u201cI have long believed that the Iranian regime must not acquire a nuclear weapon,\u201d\u00a0said<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), but \u201cIran has proceeded rapidly with its nuclear program,\u201d necessitating self-defense from Israel. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)\u00a0warned<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in the midst of the war that \u201cIran has been developing nuclear capability,\u201d and that\u00a0because<\/u><\/a>\u00a0\u201c it must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,\u201d she would \u201calways support Israel\u2019s right to defend itself.\u201d<\/p>\n These 10 senators constituted the majority of those who attended the Intelligence Committee hearing that day and heard Gabbard\u2019s testimony, which said the exact opposite of what many of them are saying now.<\/p>\n Those senators who were absent, and so presumably would have been later briefed on what had been reported in the hearing, mostly all still ended up using the same misleading rhetoric about an Iran inexorably barreling toward a nuclear weapon, including Sens.\u00a0Susan Collins<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(R-Maine) (\u201cWe know for a fact that the Iranians are increasingly enriching uranium for the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon\u201d),\u00a0Jim Risch<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(R-ID) (\u201cI pray for the people of Israel and support its right to defend itself against a nuclear Iran\u201d),\u00a0Roger Wicker<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(R-Miss.) (\u201cIran\u2019s sprint to become a nuclear threat to America and our allies\u201d), and\u00a0Chuck Schumer<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(D-N.Y.), (\u201cIran cannot have a nuclear weapon\u201d).<\/p>\n Only a few, specifically Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Jerry Moran (D-Kan.), and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) simply haven\u2019t put out any public statements on the issue at all. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), meanwhile, has been\u00a0highly critical<\/u><\/a>\u00a0of what he called Israel\u2019s \u201creckless escalation,\u201d and has\u00a0warned<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe drive for nuclear weapons, I think, by the Iranians, might ironically even be accelerated\u201d by the attack.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, as the\u00a0Trump administration<\/a>\u00a0considered heeding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s appeal to join Israel\u2019s attack, additional cold water was poured on these claims. Four sources\u00a0told CNN<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that intelligence agencies continue to believe Iran was not actively pursuing a nuke and that, even if they were, it would be three years away, while the Wall Street Journal\u00a0reported<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that U.S. officials had rejected Israeli intelligence that supposedly proved Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n Trump himself has\u00a0dismissed<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Gabbard\u2019s testimony (\u201cI don\u2019t care what she said\u201d) and reportedly\u00a0excluded<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the more war-skeptical DNI from a critical national security meeting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n All of it paints a very worrisome picture of a Washington driving headlong into a new\u00a0Middle East<\/a>\u00a0war \u2014 one where lawmakers and the president have actively chosen to ignore the intelligence they have been provided by their own intelligence community.<\/p>\n