DNI Tulsi Gabbard: US Intel Found Iran Had Not Rebuilt Enrichment Capacity After June 2025 Strikes

Washington, D.C. — Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), told the Senate Intelligence Committee that U.S. intelligence had assessed Iran had not begun rebuilding its nuclear enrichment capabilities following U.S. and Israeli strikes in June 2025.

In written testimony submitted to the committee, Gabbard cited the June 2025 strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites—referred to in the testimony as "Operation Midnight Hammer"—and wrote that the attacks had "obliterated" Iran’s enrichment program. She added that "there have been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability."

That passage was included in her written statement but was not read aloud during her televised oral testimony. When senators pressed her about omitting it, Gabbard said she ran out of time; she did not repudiate the written assessment. Senator Mark Warner, the committee's lead Democrat, said she had left out material that contradicted President Donald Trump.

"You chose to omit the parts that contradict Trump," Senator Mark Warner said.

What This Means

The disclosure calls into question a central public rationale presented by the White House for joining Israel in the recent conflict with Iran. President Trump and senior officials have repeatedly cited Iran’s nuclear ambitions as a key justification for shifting from diplomacy to military action.

Tehran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons. International monitors and arms experts have consistently judged that, even if Iran pursued such a capability, it would not constitute an immediate short- or medium-term threat.

Diplomats involved in pre-war negotiations have pushed back on White House claims that talks were hopeless. Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated recent indirect U.S.–Iran talks, disputed assertions that the discussions made no progress. According to reporting in The Guardian, U.K. national security adviser Jonathan Powell attended the final session and judged Iran’s positions did not justify an immediate rush to war.

Multiple Justifications and Legal Questions

The administration has cited several overlapping reasons for military action beyond nuclear concerns, including Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, threats to Israel and U.S. forces in the region, and a broader record of hostility since the 1979 revolution. Whether Iran posed an "imminent threat" matters for both international law and U.S. domestic law: under U.S. law, the president may deploy forces in self-defense, but only Congress can formally declare war or authorize sustained military campaigns.

While the White House has claimed this week that Iran’s ballistic missile forces and navy were "functionally destroyed" or "effectively destroyed" and that U.S. and Israeli forces now control Iranian airspace, independent analysts caution Tehran retains significant capacity to operate in the region and to influence the Strait of Hormuz.

Gabbard's Broader Assessment

Gabbard offered a more measured view than the White House. She said that despite targeted strikes and killings of some senior Iranian officials and commanders, the Iranian regime "appears to be intact but largely degraded" by what her testimony called "Operation Epic Fury." She warned that Iran and its proxies remain capable of attacks on U.S. and allied interests, and that a surviving hostile regime could mount a multiyear effort to rebuild missile and drone forces.

Gabbard also listed Iran among states, alongside Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan, that are developing missile delivery systems capable of carrying nuclear or conventional payloads. The Arms Control Association has noted U.S. intelligence estimated in 2025 that Iran, if it pursued a missile to strike the U.S., might not be capable of doing so until 2035 or later.

Internal Fallout

The testimony came a day after Joe Kent, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center and a senior official in the DNI office, resigned in protest of President Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. In his resignation, Kent wrote that Iran "posed no imminent threat" to the U.S. and said the president's action contradicted his "America First" pledges. Kent is the most high-profile administration official to resign over the conflict to date.

Gabbard, who previously opposed open-ended U.S. military engagements in the Middle East and left the Democratic Party partly for anti-war reasons, has defended the president’s prerogative to determine imminent threats. In a recent post on X, she said the DNI’s role is to provide intelligence to the commander-in-chief and quoted the administration’s position that, "After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion."

Note on Accuracy: The original draft of this article included an incorrect claim naming Iran’s supreme leader among those killed. That assertion has been removed; reporting indicates targeted killings affected some senior officials and commanders, but there is no verified reporting that Iran’s supreme leader was killed.