By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump briefly laid out a case for a possible attack on Iran in his State of the Union speech to Congress, saying he would not allow what he called the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism to obtain a nuclear weapon.
Trump called Tehran’s support for militant groups, the killings of anti-government protesters in January and the country’s missile and nuclear programs threats to the region and the United States.
Here are some questions and answers about his statements:
WHAT EXACTLY DID TRUMP SAY ABOUT IRAN’S WEAPONS PROGRAMS?
Trump said that Iran had developed missiles that can threaten Europe and U.S. bases overseas and is “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.” He said the U.S. air strikes he ordered last June known as Operation Midnight Hammer had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear weapons program but Tehran was “starting it all over” and was “at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.”
He provided no details to support his allegations.
WHAT HAVE PUBLIC U.S. ASSESSMENTS AND IRAN SAID ABOUT MISSILES?
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has said that Iran has space-launch vehicles from which it could develop a militarily-viable intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035, should it choose to pursue the capability. Iranian state media has claimed that Tehran is developing a missile capable of reaching the United States.
Missile expert Jeffrey Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, in California, said the DIA estimate seemed “very conservative” given that Iran had since 2013 been co-developing an engine with North Korea that Pyongyang has used for multiple iterations of its ICBMs, that are capable of reaching the U.S.
WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE STATUS OF IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM?
All three of the plants in which Iran is known to have produced enriched uranium, which can be used as fuel for power plants and nuclear bombs depending on its purity, were hit in U.S. strikes on Iran last June.
While Trump repeatedly said after the strikes that Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated, the director-general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said last June that Iran could start enriching uranium again on a more limited scale within months.
The IAEA says it has inspected all 13 declared nuclear facilities in Iran that were not bombed, but has been unable to inspect any of the three key sites that were hit in June: Natanz, Fordow or Isfahan.
HOW CLOSE IS IRAN TO A NUCLEAR BOMB?
One reason the United States and Israel gave for the June bombings was that Iran was getting too close to being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA and the U.S. intelligence community have separately assessed that Iran shuttered a nuclear weapons development program in 2003.
Tehran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons but as a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, says it has the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.
Western powers say there is no credible civil justification for Iran’s enrichment of uranium to the levels it has produced, and the IAEA has said it is of serious concern. No other country has done so without eventually producing nuclear weapons.
In its 2025 annual worldwide threat assessment, the U.S. intelligence community said it continued to assess that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so.”
Trump later repudiated Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s assessment, saying that she and the U.S. intelligence community were wrong and that Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear weapon. But he provided no evidence supporting his assertion.
WHAT DID TRUMP SAY ABOUT KILLINGS OF PROTESTERS?
In his Tuesday address, Trump repeated a charge that Iran has killed at least 32,000 protesters in the past couple of months, figures that could not immediately be verified.
The U.S.-based group HRANA, which monitors the human rights situation in Iran, said in a report this week that it has recorded 7,007 verified deaths and has 11,744 under review.
Hours after Trump first mentioned a 32,000 death toll last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran has already published a “comprehensive list” of all 3,117 killed in the unrest.
An Iranian official told Reuters last month authorities had verified at least 5,000 deaths, including about 500 security personnel.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Jonathan Landay and Phil Stewart; Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)
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