Austrian intel report contradicts US claims on Iran nuclear weapons program

FIRST ON FOX — A new intelligence report claims Iran is continuing with its active nuclear weapons program, which it says can be used to launch missiles over long distances. 

The startling intelligence gathering of Austrian officials contradicts the assessment of the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).  Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate Intelligence Committee in March that the American intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”

Austria’s version of the FBI — the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution — wrote Monday in an intelligence report, “In order to assert and enforce its regional political power ambitions, the Islamic Republic of Iran is striving for comprehensive rearmament, with nuclear weapons to make the regime immune to attack and to expand and consolidate its dominance in the Middle East and beyond.”

TRUMP CONFIRMS HE TOLD NETANYAHU TO BACK OFF IRAN STRIKES AMID NUCLEAR TALKS

The Austrian domestic intelligence agency report added, “The Iranian nuclear weapons development program is well advanced, and Iran possesses a growing arsenal of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads over long distances.”

According to an intelligence document obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital, “Iran has developed sophisticated sanctions-evasion networks, which has benefited Russia.” 

The Austrian intelligence findings could be an unwanted wrench in President Trump’s negotiation process to resolve the atomic crisis with Iran’s rulers because the data outlined in the report suggests the regime will not abandon its drive to secure a nuclear weapon.

In response to the Austrian intelligence, a White House official told Fox News Digital, “President Trump is committed to Iran never obtaining a nuclear weapon or the capacity to build one.”

The danger of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism (and its illegal atomic weapons program) was cited 99 times in the 211-page report that covers pressing threats to Austria’s democracy. 

“Vienna is home to one of the largest embassies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Europe, which disguises intelligence officers with diplomatic,” the Austrian intelligence report noted.

“Iranian intelligence services are familiar with developing and implementing circumvention strategies for the procurement of military equipment, proliferation-sensitive technologies, and materials for weapons of mass destruction,” the Austrian intelligence agency said.

In 2021, a Belgium court convicted Asadollah Asadi, a former Iranian diplomat based in Vienna, for planning to blow up a 2018 opposition meeting of tens of thousands of Iranian dissidents held outside Paris. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who served as President Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, attended the event in France.

IRAN FOREIGN MINISTER VOWS NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT WILL CONTINUE ‘WITH OR WITHOUT A DEAL’

When asked about the differences in conclusions between the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Austrian intelligence report, David Albright, a physicist and founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital, “The ODNI report is stuck in the past, a remnant of the fallacious unclassified 2007 NIE [National Intelligence Estimate].

“The Austrian report in general is similar to German and British assessments. Both governments, by the way, made clear to (the) U.S. IC [intelligence community] in 2007 that they thought the U.S. assessment was wrong that the Iranian nuclear weapons program ended in 2003.

“The German assessment is from BND [Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service] station chief in D.C. at that time. The British info is from a senior British non-proliferation official I was having dinner with the day the 2007 NIE was made public. The German said the U.S. was misinterpreting data they all possessed.” 

The Austrian intelligence findings that Tehran is working on an active atomic weapons program “seems clear enough,” said Albright.

In 2023, Fox News Digital revealed a fresh batch of European intelligence reports showed that Iran sought to bypass U.S. and EU sanctions to secure technology for its nuclear weapons program with a view toward testing an atomic bomb.

European intelligence agencies have documented prior to 2015 and after the Iran nuclear deal( JCPOA) was agreed upon that Tehran continued efforts to illegally secure technology for its atomic, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction programs. 

The Austrian intelligence report noted that Iran provides weapons to the U.S.-designated terrorist movements Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as to Syrian militias.

A spokesperson for ODNI declined to comment. The U.S. State Department and U.S. National Security Council did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital press queries.