Takeaways from intelligence officials’ testimony amid war with Iran 

Aaron Blake | CNN  

Top Trump administration officials testified publicly Wednesday for the first time since the launch of the Iran war three weeks ago. Officials including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where they were pressed on the administration’s often-confusing and contradictory claims about the Iran war and the underlying intelligence. The testimony came a day after the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, became the highest-profile Trump administration official to resign over the war. Kent did so while suggesting the administration had lied about Iran posing an imminent threat. 

Trump’s Next Decision: Whether to Retrieve Iran’s Nuclear Fuel, Whatever the Risk 

David E. Sanger | The New York Times  

Repeatedly over the past two days, President Trump returned to his central argument for his decision to attack Iran, and to do it at this moment in history. Tehran was on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, the president insists, and would use it first on Israel, then on the United States. ... In fact, listening to Mr. Trump in recent days is to hear a president debating whether to order the biggest Iran mission of all: to seize or destroy the near-bomb-grade nuclear material believed to be largely stored deep under a mountain in Isfahan. ... Mr. Trump told reporters on Tuesday that ground operations didn’t worry him. “I’m really not afraid of that,” he told reporters. “I’m really not afraid of anything.” 

What to know about Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant after report of projectile hitting its complex

Jon Gambrell | Associated Press 

Iran and Russia both allege that a projectile struck the grounds of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the Islamic Republic, raising the specter of a radiological incident as Tehran’s war with Israel and the United States rages. And though no release of nuclear material was reported following the incident on Tuesday evening, it again underlines a longtime worry of Iran’s neighbors — that the power plant on the shores of the Persian Gulf could be hit by either an attack or a natural disaster such as an earthquake. ... Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the IAEA, told journalists in Washington that the damage at Bushehr appeared to have been done by a drone and “doesn’t seem to be very significant.” “At the same time, any attack on any nuclear facility should always be avoided,” he added. 

War can't entirely eliminate Iran's nuclear program, the U.N. atomic energy chief says chief says 

NPR 

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says he believes some part of Iran's nuclear program will remain, even after the heavy damage done by U.S. and Israeli military strikes. "Of course, there is an enormous degradation of the physical facilities," Grossi told NPR's Geoff Brumfiel on Wednesday. "But most probably, at the end of this [military conflict], the material will still be there and the enrichment capacities will be there, perhaps some infrastructure will still be there."  

Gabbard says Pakistan missiles a future threat to US, but experts push back 

Abid Hussain | Al Jazeera  

The United States’s top intelligence official has placed Pakistan alongside Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as a country whose advancing missile capabilities could eventually put US territory within reach. Presenting the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the five countries were “researching and developing an array of novel, advanced or traditional missile delivery systems with nuclear and conventional payloads, that put our homeland within range.” 

The Alternative to Obama’s Nuclear Deal Was War. Why Did Trump Tear It Up? 

Suzanne Maloney | The New York Times  

In announcing attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump declared that Tehran had “rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.” A few days later he said, “If we didn’t hit within two weeks they would’ve had a nuclear weapon.” Mr. Trump’s timeline is greatly exaggerated, but it’s clear that the nuclear threat looms large in his shifting justifications for the attacks. His statements are also a reminder that he tore up the deal that was designed to prevent a war over Iran’s nuclear program. ... Opponents and supporters of the nuclear deal agreed on at least one thing: that the alternative was war.