Tulsi Gabbard offers threat assessment – and walks a careful line on Iran
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s airstrikes had “significantly degraded” Iran’s military capabilities, but she sidestepped other questions about the war — including whether the administration had advance warning of the likelihood that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz and strike neighboring Gulf countries.
Ms. Gabbard testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee alongside FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and other senior administration officials in an annual hearing on global threats.
Gabbard offered an assessment of the impact so far of Operation Epic Fury, the US military campaign in Iran, citing major successes against Iranian military capabilities, while noting that the regime remains intact. But she avoided directly answering whether the intelligence community informed the administration in advance of the likelihood that Iran would launch retaliatory strikes against neighboring oil-producing countries that look to the United States for protection, or close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane through which 20% of the world’s oil flows. She also declined to answer a question about whether Russia was providing intelligence to Iran, saying it would be more appropriate to address that issue in the confidential, non-public portion of the hearing. The 19-day war has already resulted in the deaths of 13 American soldiers.
Why we wrote this
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers that the U.S. military campaign in Iran had effectively destroyed that country’s military capabilities. But she sidestepped questions about whether the Trump administration had been warned that Iran would attack its Gulf neighbors and close the Strait of Hormuz, effectively halting oil shipments.
Democratic lawmakers pressed the apparent discrepancy between the intelligence community’s assessment that June’s U.S. airstrikes wiped out Iran’s nuclear program and the White House’s assertion that it launched Operation Epic Fury to deal with an imminent nuclear threat from Iran. Ms Gabbard stood by her earlier assessment of the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program – but said it was the president’s responsibility to determine what did and did not constitute an imminent threat.
Ms. Gabbard has long opposed military action against Iran. During her 2020 presidential campaign, she sold T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “No war with Iran.” During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ms. Gabbard, then a Democratic congresswoman, denounced the U.S. operation that killed Iranian military strategist Qasem Soleimani, saying Mr. Trump had “committed an illegal and unconstitutional act of war.”
Since US airstrikes began last month, it has remained largely silent.
Wednesday’s hearing came a day after Gabbard ally Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned from his post, saying he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.” In his resignation letter to President Donald Trump and posted on social media, Kent said Iran posed “no imminent threat” and that the United States had started the war “under pressure from Israel.”
At the hearing, Mr. Ratcliffe directly refuted Mr. Kent’s assertion. “Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for a long time and currently poses an immediate threat,” he said.
The hearing touched on a number of topics other than Iran, including Russia’s war against Ukraine and concerns about the integrity of the country’s elections. Democratic Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the committee, questioned Ms. Gabbard about her appearance during an FBI raid on an election center in Georgia’s Fulton County, during which agents seized ballots for the 2020 election. Ms. Gabbard said she went there in an observation role at the “request of the president.”
