Trump and U.S. intelligence appear at odds over Iran’s nuclear progress

The U.S. assessment of Iran’s nuclear program has not changed since March when the director of national intelligence told lawmakers that Tehran has large amounts of enriched uranium but has not made a decision to rush towards building an atomic bomb, according to the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee and a source with knowledge of the matter.

Comments by President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have painted a different picture, suggesting that Iran is now racing toward creating a nuclear weapon.

Trump said Wednesday that Iran was “a few weeks” from having a nuclear weapon and Netanyahu said in a recent interview that Iran was pursuing a “secret plan” to build a bomb within months.

“The intel we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear, was absolutely clear that they were working on a secret plan to weaponize the uranium,” Netanyahu recently told Fox News. “They were marching very quickly. They would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months and certainly less than a year.”

U.S. intelligence reporting on Israel is typically based in part on information provided by Israel’s intelligence services. It was unclear if Netanyahu’s remarks were based on a different interpretation of the same intelligence.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters he was perplexed by Trump’s assertions as lawmakers have received a different picture from U.S. intelligence officials.

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told lawmakers in March that U.S. spy agencies assessed that Iran had not made a decision to build nuclear weapons but it had stockpiles of enriched uranium far beyond what is required for civilian purposes. The U.S. intelligence community’s view has not changed since her testimony, the source with knowledge of the matter said.

Warner said Wednesday that he received further confirmation of the March intelligence assessment “this week.”

On Tuesday, President Trump publicly dismissed Gabbard’s testimony, saying “I don’t care what she said.”

Warner said the administration needed to clarify if there was new intelligence on Iran’s nuclear work.

“So far, at least, the intelligence community has stood by its conclusion that Iran is not moving towards a nuclear weapon. They were enriching additional uranium, but they were not weaponizing that yet, and that (decision) was left with the supreme leader,” Warner said.

“If there has been a change in that intelligence, I need to know, and I want to make sure that if it is changed, it’s based upon fact and not political influence,” the senator said.

Building the bomb

For Iran to acquire a nuclear arsenal, it would need to enrich uranium to 90 percent purity. At the moment, it has a significant amount of uranium enriched to 60 percent, about 400 kilograms’ worth, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It would take a small technical step to enrich to 90 percent. Iran has enough uranium now to produce up to 10 weapons over several weeks, according to U.S. officials’ estimates.

But enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels is only the first step. Then Iran would have to build and test a device that can be delivered in the form of a bomb or missile. Estimates vary, but Western officials and analysts say it could take months to more than a year to build a nuclear weapon.

Weapons experts say Iran is not weeks away from securing a nuclear weapon, but it is weeks away from securing enough fissile material for an eventual weapon.

The director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, said in a report earlier this month that “Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state in the world that is producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60 percent.”

But on Tuesday, Grossi told CNN said that U.N. inspectors did not have proof Iran was engaged in “a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.”

Israel’s air strikes on Iran have probably set back the country’s nuclear program by a few months, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

Since launching its campaign against Iran last week, Israel has bombed centrifuge plants used to enrich uranium, including a site at Natanz south of Tehran, and labs used to convert uranium gas into a metal, according to the IAEA and Israeli officials.

Israel says it has killed several nuclear scientists and targeted missile launch and storage sites in its air raids.