Gabbard: US and Israeli goals in war against Iran are not the same

US and Israeli goals in the war against Iran are not the same, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said today, stating that Israel is focused on disabling the Iranian leadership, while US President Donald Trump is focused on destroying Iran's ballistic missile program and navy, Reuters reports.

"The goals that the president has outlined are different from the goals that the Israeli government has outlined," Gabbard told the House Intelligence Committee at its annual hearing on global threats to the United States.

"We can see from the operations themselves that the Israeli government was focused on disabling the Iranian leadership. The president has said that his goals are to destroy Iran's ballistic missile launch capabilities, their ballistic missile production capabilities and their navy," she said.

Reuters reports that the US and Israel have repeatedly sought to highlight their close coordination in joint air strikes on Iran, but that officials on both sides have acknowledged that their goals are not the same.

As the conflict neared its third week, Israel led strikes that killed Iranian religious and military leaders, while the US focused on targeting sites linked to the country's missile program.

Attack on the gas field

The difference in targets became particularly visible on Wednesday evening, when Trump said in a social media post that Washington "knew nothing" about the Israeli attack on Iran's South Pars gas field, which was followed by an Iranian attack on energy infrastructure in Qatar, and that Israel would not target the field again unless Iran attacked Qatar again.

Gabbard said she had no answer when asked by Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas what she attributed to Israel's decision to attack Iranian infrastructure despite Trump's position that those facilities should be out of range of attack.

Gabbard's appearance before the House of Representatives was her second consecutive day of testimony, after she, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe and other intelligence agency directors testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday.

At both hearings, Gabbard was asked whether she believed Iran posed an "imminent" threat to the US, which would justify the US and Israeli airstrikes that began on February 28.

Joe Kent, who headed the National Counterterrorism Center, on Tuesday became the first senior Trump administration official to resign over the war with Iran, stating that Iran did not pose an immediate threat to the United States.

Gabbard said at both hearings that it is solely up to Trump to assess whether the US faces an imminent threat.