A senior United States intelligence official resigned from his post on Tuesday, citing misgivings about the war with Iran launched by the US and Israel.
Joseph Kent, the director of national intelligence in the US’ National Counterterrorism Center, said in a letter to President Donald Trump: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Kent was the first member of the US administration to resign citing the war in West Asia.
The intelligence official said that he could not support “sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives”.
The White House denied the claim that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States, and described it as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism”.
“The Iranian regime is evil,” White House Press Secretry Karoline Leavitt said in a social media post. “It proudly killed Americans, waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury.”
Leavitt alleged that Iran was aggressively expanding its short-range ballistic missiles which, combined with its naval assets, could “hold us and the rest of the world hostage”.
“The regime aimed to use those ballistic missiles as a shield to continue achieving their ultimate goal – nuclear weapons,” the White House official claimed.
The conflict
Kent’s resignation came over two weeks after the US and Israel launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government on February 28. Tehran has retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in Gulf countries and some ships.
The joint attacks came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.
Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.
Over 1,400 persons have been killed and more than 18,000 injured by US-Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28, Al Jazeera reported.
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