Gabbard tells senators Iranian regime is degraded but still intact

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers Wednesday that the regime in Iran “appears to be intact but largely degraded” after almost three weeks of war in the Middle East, but she faced intense scrutiny over the Trump administration’s preparation for the conflict and how she advised the president about the risks it posed.

Her Senate testimony alongside the Trump administration’s other top intelligence officials follows the stunning resignation of Joe Kent, a senior political appointee overseeing the National Counterterrorism Center, who cast doubt on the administration’s case for starting the war.

Gabbard said in her opening remarks that the regime in Tehran could face increased challenges as Iran’s economy falters but that the country and its proxies “continue to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East” even after setbacks leading up to, and following, the start of hostilities.

Strikingly, in her opening statement she departed from prepared remarks - published ahead of Wednesday’s hearing - outlining the intelligence community’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear capability. As she spoke to lawmakers, Gabbard said that after the U.S. military bombed Iran’s nuclear sites over the summer, Tehran was “trying to recover” from the “severe damage” caused by the operation.

According to her written statement, Gabbard was expected to say that the Iranians had made “no efforts” since the U.S. bombing of their nuclear facilities “to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.” That statement appeared to undercut assertions made by the administration, which has cited Iran’s nuclear program as one reason President Donald Trump felt an imperative to start the war.

When Sen. Mark R. Warner (Virginia), the committee’s top Democrat, asked Gabbard why she deviated from her written remarks, she told him that she had skipped some portions as “the time was running long.”

Warner then accused her of having chosen “to omit the parts that contradict the president.”

Under questioning from Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia), Gabbard acknowledged later that her written remarks do reflect the intelligence community’s assessment, though she declined to say directly whether Iran had posed an “imminent nuclear threat” as the Trump administration has claimed.

“The only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president,” Gabbard said.

Wednesday’s hearing, also featuring testimony from CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel among others, marks the first public accounting from such senior Trump officials since the war began in late February - and could further expose divisions within the Republican Party over the conflict and the administration’s preparations for it.

The officials faced sharp questions from Democrats over the Iran war and election security.

Multiple Democratic lawmakers pressed the witnesses on what advice they provided Trump ahead of the war on whether Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s moves in the strait have disrupted oil flows, scrambling the global economy and contributing to a spike in gas prices across the United States.

Gabbard and Ratcliffe said the U.S. intelligence community, or IC, anticipated Iran’s move on the strait. “There has long been an assessment of the IC that Iran would likely hold the Strait of Hormuz as leverage,” Gabbard said. But she and the CIA chief declined to discuss what specific briefings Trump received.

“Did he know this was going to happen, or did he just disregard it?” asked Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona).

Neither official provided a direct answer to the question.

Kent’s abrupt exit from the administration Tuesday - he is the first senior administration official to resign in protest over the war - could intensify scrutiny of Gabbard, a onetime Democratic congresswoman, from committee Republicans who support Trump’s decision to take military action against Iran.

Gabbard has long criticized U.S. intervention in the Middle East and is a close friend of Kent, who argued in a public letter to the president that Iran “posed no imminent threat” to America, as the administration has claimed, and that Israel had goaded Trump into starting the war.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) pressed Ratcliffe on the war’s potential to degrade America’s military readiness to defend against threats posed by Russia and China.

Ratcliffe responded that the intelligence picture provided ahead of the Iran assault had been “flawless” and that while the attacks on American personnel and interests in the Middle East would “come at some cost,” the U.S. military and intelligence community could “walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Republicans quickly moved to dismiss some of Kent’s claims. Sen. Tom Cotton (Arkansas), the Intelligence Committee’s Republican chair, called Kent’s assessment “misguided” and argued that “Iran’s vast missile arsenal and support for terrorism posed a grave and growing threat to America.”

The officials testifying Wednesday pointed to the military objectives accomplished during the war, including damage to Iran’s ballistic missile program. This week, Israel said that it had killed Iran’s chief intelligence and national security officials as it continues decapitation strikes against the regime.

In a carefully worded statement posted on social media following Kent’s announcement, Gabbard said that it is the president who is “responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat” and that, “after carefully reviewing all the information before him,” Trump decided Iran posed one.

Ratcliffe said under questioning from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that he disagreed with Kent’s assertions and that “any fair-minded assessment” of Iran’s capabilities would suggest that Iran posed a threat to the United States.

Trump has repeatedly shifted his rationale for the war, from supporting regime change to countering Iran’s nuclear program and vowing to destroy its military capabilities.

Before closed-door briefings with members of Congress earlier in March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also the White House national security adviser, argued that Israel had decided to strike Iran and that Trump decided to join the attacks rather than face Tehran’s retaliation against U.S. forces deployed throughout the region after the fact.

Iran has fired scores of missiles and one-way attack drones at American positions in response to the U.S.-Israeli assault, killing seven U.S. troops and wounding more than 200. Six service members died in a plane crash in Iraq last week while supporting the war.

Warner used his opening statement to decry Gabbard’s appearance at a raid to seize 2020 election ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and her involvement in examining voting machines in Puerto Rico.

Gabbard, Warner said, has failed to provide evidence of foreign interference in those elections or the upcoming midterms while the Trump administration has cut back or eliminated election security efforts. Her activities, he added, “suggests something that should alarm every American: an organized effort to misuse her national security powers to interfere in domestic politics … and provide a pretext for the president’s unconstitutional efforts to seize control of the upcoming elections.”