(The Tower) - Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey slammed Iran on Tuesday as "a threat to U.S. national security," emphasizing that the Islamic republic is "certainly preserving and building on [its] options" for creating a nuclear weapon. "Iran is a threat to U.S. national security in many ways, not simply their move towards the potential to develop a nuclear weapon," General Martin Dempsey said during a Congressional hearing. "I choose my words carefully, because the intelligence community has not yet come to a conclusion that they intend to build a nuclear weapon, but they're certainly preserving and building on their options to do so, which should be of concern to all of us and is," he said in response to a question. "We have been very clear as a nation that we are determined to prevent them from acquiring a nuclear weapon because it would be so destabilizing to the region. But they are also active in cyber. They've got surrogates all over the region and all over the world. They proliferate arms. They are a disruptive influence globally. And so I do consider them a threat to our national security," Dempsey said.
2013-06-13 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive