'She is wrong': Trump makes bold claim on Iran's nuclear plans, again challenges US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard
Tearing into the
US intelligence community
, President Donald Trump said his director of national intelligence was 'wrong' when she testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. The President told reporters that he now believes Tehran has a 'tremendous amount' of enriched uranium that could build a bomb in just a few weeks.
The comments come after Trump earlier this week cast doubt on US spy chief
Tulsi Gabbard
's March 25 report to Congress, in which she reiterated the US intelligence community's assessment. Gabbard testified before Congress in March that Iran was not building nuclear weapons.
Trump's bold claim on Iran's nuclear ambitions
What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a weapon? Your intelligence community said they have no evidence that they are at this point,' the reporter asked Trump on the tarmac outside of Bedminster, New Jersey.
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'Then my intelligence community is wrong,' the president said, asking who said that. 'She's wrong,' he said of Gabbard.
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Gabbard appeared to come to Trump's defence later on Friday.
'America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly,' she wrote in a social media post. 'President Trump has been clear that can't happen, and I agree.'
But he statement does not contradict her earlier assessment that Iran is not building a weapon. No known US intelligence assessment concludes that Iran is weaponising its nuclear programme. The spy chief had also noted in her testimony that Iran's uranium stockiples were at unprecedented levels for a non-nuclear state.
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What is White House saying?
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that 'Iran has all that it needs to keep a nuclear weapon' and 'all they need is a decision from the Supreme leader to do that.' The president announced Thursday that he would be making his final decision on whether to strike Iran using the US military 'within the next two weeks' if Tehran doesn't 'come to their senses' about the need to eliminate its nuclear program.
'We're going to see what that period of time is, but I'm giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,' Trump added Friday.
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He appeared to rule out using US ground forces to invade Iran. 'Well, I'm not going to talk about ground forces. The last thing you want to do is ground force,' the commander-in-chief said.
Speaking on Friday, Trump also appeared to downplay the prospect of the US brokering a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel, saying he 'might' support such a deal, while adding, 'Israel's doing well in terms of war, and I think you would say that Iran is doing less well.'
'It's hard to make that request right now. When someone's winning, it's harder than when they're losing,' he added.
The involvement of US military is considered crucial to Israel's goal of fully dismantling Iran's nuclear program, particularly the destruction of the underground Fordow enrichment facility.
Achieving this would likely require the use of Washington's 30,000-pound (13,000 kg) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, along with the B-2 stealth bombers capable of deploying it.
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