CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Thursday testified before the House Intelligence Committee that America would be “immediately attacked” upon Israel attacking Iran.
On Thursday, during the House Intelligence Committee hearing, Gabbard dodged Rep. Andre Carson’s (D-IN) question of whether or not “Iran intended to conduct a preemptive attack on the US prior to beginning this war.” She stated that “the answer to this question needs to be reserved for a closed hearing,” and “the intelligence community does provide the assessments of the threats that exist to the president, so that he can make that determination within the body of information.”
Ratcliffe in his response just flat out admitted that “in the likely event of a conflict between Iran and Israel, that the US would be immediately attacked, regardless of whether the United States stayed out of that conflict.”
WATCH:
Carson: The Trump administration has justified this war with Iran as necessary to stop an imminent threat. But the administration has not provided this committee with any intelligence indicating Iran was preparing a nuclear weapon, planning a preemptive attack on the United States, or possess any immediate capability to strike the US homeland. That raises very serious questions about what the analysis of the IC provided before the decision to go to war was made. Directors Gabbard and Ratcliffe, is there any evidence that Iran intended to conduct a preemptive attack on the United States? And I ask this because 13 service members have been killed in Trump’s war, including Captain Seth Koval, a husband and a dad from my state of Indiana, and my constituents want answers. So, is there any evidence that Iran intended to conduct a preemptive attack on the US prior to beginning this war, yes or no?
Gabbard: Congressman, the answer to this question needs to be reserved for a closed hearing. I will say, however, the intelligence community does provide the assessments of the threats that exist to the president, so that he can make that determination within the body of information and intelligence and activities within the region that ultimately he is responsible for what is an imminent threat, and if there is an imminent threat, what actions need to be taken?
Ratcliffe: Congressman, as the DNI said, there’s a body of intelligence that we’ll be able to cover in the in the classified portion of this hearing that reflects, that does reflect that in the likely event of a conflict between Iran and Israel, that the US would be immediately attacked, regardless of whether the United States stayed out of that conflict.
It can be recalled that before the war, US negotiators were working to negotiate a deal, and Trump had been threatening military action against Iran. But now, the Secretary of State that the US struck because Israel wanted to attack, but at the same time, pretending that isn’t the case.
Previously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made similar comments in the days following the initial Operation Epic Fury strikes, where he told reporters that an Israeli attack against Iran was imminent and that “if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States, Israel, or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States.”
“If we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties,” Rubio said of Israel’s planned attack.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.”
Based on what Rubio said, later corroborated by Ratcliffe, Israel was planning to attack, which placed American troops in danger, and therefore, the United States was forced to “preemptively” attack Iran.
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As The Gateway Pundit reported, Rubio attempted to obfuscate his comments, snapping at reporters and claiming that, “The President determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple, guys. We are not going to put American troops in harm’s way. If you tell the President of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the President is going to go first.”
Ratcliffe’s comments come after Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned on Tuesday, citing his opposition to the war in Iran and undue influence from Israeli officials. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he said in a letter to President Trump.
President Trump responded to his resignation, calling Kent “very weak on security,” adding, “When I read his statement, I realized that it’s a good thing he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat.”
The post (VIDEO) CIA Director John Ratcliffe Says US Would be “Immediately Attacked” in the “Likely Event of a Conflict Between Iran and Israel” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.