{"id":204609,"date":"2026-03-19T02:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/intel-chief-gabbard-declines-to-say-if-iran-posed-an-imminent-threat-to-u-s-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T02:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:47:24","slug":"intel-chief-gabbard-declines-to-say-if-iran-posed-an-imminent-threat-to-u-s-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/intel-chief-gabbard-declines-to-say-if-iran-posed-an-imminent-threat-to-u-s-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Intel chief Gabbard declines to say if Iran posed an 'imminent threat' to U.S. – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

BREAKING: The FBI is conducting a leak investigation of a former counterterrorism official who resigned over the Iran war, source says<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2014 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard<\/a> declined to say if Iran\u2019s nuclear program presented an \u201cimminent threat,\u201d deflecting questions from lawmakers about whether U.S. intelligence backed up White House statements on the rationale for starting the war.
Gabbard\u2019s congressional testimony Wednesday at an annual hearing on worldwide threats came a day after a top deputy, Joe Kent, resigned in protest over the Iran war,<\/a> saying that the Tehran regime posed no imminent threat and the joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign was unnecessary.
Kent and Gabbard, both military veterans, had found political common ground over their opposition to foreign military interventions and \u201cregime change\u201d wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. Gabbard has not publicly endorsed the decision to go to war, staying mostly silent on the U.S.-Israeli air campaign that began on Feb. 28.
Her appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee took place as the war entered <\/a>its third week, with no clear end in sight. The White House has offered shifting rationales for launching the offensive,<\/a> and Iran has retaliated, essentially shutting down a critical passageway<\/a> for commercial shipping.
The conflict has triggered a spike in gas prices<\/a>, creating political problems for President Donald Trump at home ahead of the congressional midterm elections in November.
Gabbard’s reluctance to offer a full-throated endorsement of the president\u2019s decision to wage war on Iran, unlike other Cabinet officials, raised fresh questions about her standing in the administration.
In her opening statement, Gabbard omitted language included in her written remarks saying that Iran had not tried to rebuild its uranium enrichment capability after U.S. air strikes in June.
\u201c<\/em>Iran\u2019s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability,\u201d her prepared remarks read, according to her written statement posted on the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s website.
That assessment appeared to contradict Trump, who has said Iran was working to rebuild its nuclear program.<\/a>
Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, asked Gabbard why she had omitted the paragraph.
She replied: \u201cI recognized that the time was running long, and I skipped through some of the portions of my oral delivered remarks.\u201d
Her answers remained neutral throughout the hearing on Wednesday.
When pressed by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D.-Ga., on the threat posed by Iran\u2019s nuclear program, Gabbard echoed an online statement she posted Tuesday after Kent\u2019s resignation, saying that only the commander in chief could decide what represented an urgent threat to the country.
\u201cFalse,\u201d Ossoff replied. \u201cYou\u2019re evading a question because a candid statement would contradict the White House.\u201d
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, though, weighed in when asked a similar question by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, saying he disagreed with Kent\u2019s objections to the war.
\u201cI think Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time,\u201d Ratcliffe said.
Democrats at the hearing also pressed Gabbard about what intelligence was conveyed to Trump about how Iran would react to a potential U.S. attack, saying the president has expressed surprise at Iran\u2019s strikes on neighboring countries.
Gabbard and Ratcliffe said that before the U.S. launched air attacks on Iran, U.S. intelligence indicated that Iran would possibly launch strikes on energy sites in the Middle East region and try to close off the Strait of Hormuz.<\/a>
Gabbard said that it had long been an intelligence community assessment that \u201cIran would likely hold the Strait of Hormuz as leverage\u201d in a conflict.
Citing intelligence assessments, she also told lawmakers that Iran\u2019s regime was still intact but \u201clargely degraded\u201d after more than two weeks of U.S.-Israeli air attacks.
She said Iran\u2019s \u201cconventional military power projection capabilities have largely been destroyed, leaving limited options. Iran\u2019s strategic position has been significantly degraded.\u201d
Even if the regime stays in power, \u201cthe intelligence community assesses that internal tensions are likely to increase as Iran\u2019s economy worsens,\u201d Gabbard said.
In its written report to the committee, the intelligence agencies found that the U.S.-Israeli strikes had \u201ccurtailed Iran\u2019s ability to project power, but it is using all of its remaining capabilities … to retaliate against us and our allies in the hope of bringing the conflict to a close.\u201d
Dan De Luce\u00a0is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.\u00a0
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BREAKING: The FBI is conducting a leak investigation of a former counterterrorism official who resigned over the Iran war, source says news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeWASHINGTON \u2014 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declined to say if Iran\u2019s nuclear program presented an \u201cimminent threat,\u201d deflecting questions from lawmakers about whether U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-204609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}