Former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, has sparked controversy after criticizing President Donald Trump’s stance on Iran and claiming that US intelligence agencies had concluded Tehran was not pursuing nuclear weapons before the outbreak of war.
According to Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency, Kent made the remarks in a post on social media platform X following his resignation amid ongoing US military operations against Iran.
Kent claimed that before the start of the 40-day conflict, US intelligence agencies — including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — shared a unified assessment that Iran was not actively developing nuclear weapons.
Despite those assessments, Kent alleged that political pressure and narratives promoted by the Israeli government ultimately pushed the United States into war.
He further stated that intelligence agencies had warned in advance that any joint Israeli-American strikes on Iran could trigger retaliatory attacks on US military bases across the Middle East and potentially lead to the closure of the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.
According to Kent, intelligence officials had also cautioned that targeting Iran’s top leadership could strengthen hardline factions within the country rather than weaken them.
The claims were strongly rejected by White House spokesperson Davis Ingle.
In a statement, Ingle described Kent’s resignation letter and recent comments as “full of falsehoods.”
He also accused Kent of falsely suggesting that Iran — which US officials have repeatedly described as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — posed no threat to the United States and that Israel had pressured President Trump into launching “Operation Epic Fury.”
Kent had resigned from his post in March during the ongoing conflict, sharply criticizing the Trump administration’s decision to wage war against Iran. In his resignation letter, he argued that Iran did not pose an immediate threat to the United States and claimed that Israel and pro-Israel lobbying groups in America had pushed Washington toward military confrontation.
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