Trump tells Congress that Iran had nuclear weapons programme, contradicting US spy agencies

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump told Congress this week that the Iranian sites bombed by the US housed a “nuclear weapons development programme”, even though US spy agencies have said no such programme existed.

Mr Trump's claim raised questions on whether US intelligence backed up his decision to order

the strikes on Iran on June 22.

The Republican President made the assertion in a letter dated June 23 to House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a key ally, and it was posted on the White House's website.

“United States forces conducted a precision strike against three nuclear facilities in Iran used by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its nuclear weapons development programme,” Mr Trump wrote.

The most recent US assessment, presented to Congress in March by director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had not ordered the restarting of a nuclear-weapons effort shuttered in 2003.

A source with access to US intelligence reports told Reuters last week that the March assessment had not changed.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful uses.

Then President George Bush justified the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by saying intelligence showed the country had weapons of mass destruction. This was later discredited and prompted a political backlash.

Mr Trump first cast doubt on intelligence about Iran's nuclear programme last week, when he repudiated the assessment that Ms Gabbard delivered to Congress.

“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” Mr Trump told reporters, referring to a nuclear weapon.

Ms Gabbard herself on June 20 disputed media accounts of her March testimony, saying on X that US intelligence showed Iran could make a nuclear weapon “in weeks to months” if it chose.

According to unclassified US intelligence reports compiled before the strikes, Iran closed a nuclear weapons programme in 2003 – a conclusion shared by the United Nations nuclear watchdog – and has not mastered all of the technologies required.

But Tehran does have the expertise to build a warhead at some point, according to the reports.

The US attacked three Iranian nuclear sites – Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow – on June 22.

It hit deeply buried Fordow, where advanced centrifuges could produce low-enriched uranium for nuclear reactor fuel and highly enriched uranium for warheads, with “bunker-busting” bombs.

Mr Trump and other top officials said the sites were obliterated.

But a preliminary US intelligence assessment found the attack set back Tehran's programme by only months, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on June 24.

A US official who read the assessment said it contained a number of caveats, and a more refined report was expected in the coming days and weeks. REUTERS