Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, pressed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard about the objectives of the U.S. and Israel in Iran after Israel struck the world’s largest gas field, South Pars, in Iran.
“What does the intelligence community assess Israel’s goals in this war to be, and are those goals aligned with the goals of the United States?” he asked.
Gabbard answered that the objectives laid out by the president differ from those outlined by the Israeli government.
“We can see through the operations that the Israeli government has been focused on disabling the Iranian leadership and taking out several members, obviously beginning with the ayatollah and the supreme leader, and they continue to focus on that effort,” she said.
“How does that differ from our goals?” Castro asked.
Gabbard replied: “The president has stated that his objectives are to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability, and their navy, the IRGC navy and mine length capability.”
Castro then asked if Israel is supportive of Trump’s call to make a deal with Iran.
Gabbard said, “I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know Israel’s position on that.”
“What do you attribute Israel’s decision to strike Iranian energy infrastructure despite President Trump’s call to keep those facilities off limits?” Castro asked.
“I don’t have an answer for that,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard said that she isn’t “privy to any of their deliberations or what went into their calculus and launching this or other attacks.”
“We are not involved with the in the operational element of this,” she added. “We’re providing continuously, on a daily basis, the intelligence assessments of the events that are occurring.”