Iran ‘had a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program,’ White House says

WASHINGTON — Secret Iranian documents stolen by Israel and revealed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday underscore an existing US intelligence assessment, the White House said, that Tehran “had a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people.”

The statement from Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, confirmed that the US had been given access to the trove of documents allegedly taken by Mossad agents in a raid of a Tehran warehouse on a single January night this year.

The US “continues to examine it carefully,” the statement reads. But “this information provides new and compelling details about Iran’s efforts to develop missile-deliverable nuclear weapons.”

“These facts are consistent with what the United States has long known,” the statement continues. “The Iranian regime has shown it will use destructive weapons against its neighbors and others. Iran must never have nuclear weapons.”

Netanyahu revealed the documents in a spectacular presentation from the defense ministry in Tel Aviv on Monday evening local time, filled with PowerPoint slides and a curtain reveal. If authentic, they reveal what much of the world long suspected and  what Western intelligence agencies already apparently knew: That Iran had a sustained nuclear weapons program that included plans to build up to five nuclear warheads, and to even test them in underground facilities.

Netanyahu used the evidence to call Iran’s leaders a group of liars, airing videos from as recently as this year of the nation’s foreign minister, president and supreme leader denying that such a program ever existed — or would exist.

The White House statement initially released was in the present tense, suggesting the administration believes Iran’s clandestine weapons program continues. But administration officials clarified to The Jerusalem Post on Monday evening that the tense used was a mistake, and had been corrected online.

In congressional testimony over the past year, Dan Coats, US director of national intelligence; James Mattis, the defense secretary; and Mike Pompeo, both during his tenure as CIA director and in his confirmation hearings to become secretary of state, have all confirmed that Iran has abided by the terms of a nuclear agreement brokered in 2015 barring it from conducting any nuclear weapons work.

US President Donald Trump earlier in the day said Israel’s findings proved he was “100% right” about the 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, which he castigates repeatedly as one of the worst diplomatic agreements in history.

He has given European powers until May 12 to come up with “substantial” proposals to fix the accord. Otherwise, he says he will not renew waivers on nuclear sanctions against Iran, effectively withdrawing the US from the accord.