LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In front of a different Senate panel, the nation's top intelligence officials offered their first public testimony on the war in Iran on Wednesday. Their verdict - Iran is seriously weakened, but the country's government is still functioning. Here's NPR's Greg Myre.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: The director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said Iran has lost many of its leaders and much of its military firepower, but it's still standing.
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TULSI GABBARD: The regime in Iran appears to be intact, but largely degraded due to attacks on its leadership and military capabilities.
MYRE: CIA director John Ratcliffe also testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Ratcliffe said he disagreed with Joe Kent, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. Kent resigned Tuesday to protest the war in Iran, saying that country was not an imminent threat to the U.S. Ratcliffe told senators...
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JOHN RATCLIFFE: I 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.
MYRE: Democrats pressed both spy chiefs over murky statements about the war by various Trump administration officials. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia asked Gabbard why her spoken remarks skipped over a key part of her written testimony that was submitted to the committee. The written statement said Iran's nuclear program was badly damaged last year, and there were no efforts since then to try to rebuild enrichment capability.
That's at odds with recent comments by President Trump, who says the current war is necessary because Iran restarted its nuclear program and was moving toward a bomb.
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MARK WARNER: Was that because the president had said there was a imminent threat two weeks...
GABBARD: No, sir. I recognized that the time was running long, and I skipped through some of the portions of my...
WARNER: So you chose to...
GABBARD: ...Of my oral...
WARNER: ...You chose to take - omit...
GABBARD: ...Of my oral delivered remarks. That's correct.
WARNER: ...You chose to omit the parts that contradict the president.
MYRE: Gabbard went on to say, only the president can determine what is an imminent threat to the country. Greg Myre, NPR News, Washington.
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