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Mossad is using CIA Director and USCENTCOM’s head to influence Trump with cooked intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program

A Trump official tells The Grayzone that Israel’s Mossad is using CIA Director John Ratcliffe and US CENTCOM’s Gen. Michael Kurilla to influence Trump with cooked intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program. Inside the White House, dissenters have been isolated, setting the stage for a regime change war that could cost American lives.
 
by Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil 

Part 4 - Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles isolates Trump with “Israel’s favorite general”
 
The Trump official told The Grayzone that White House Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles has ensured that the president remains surrounded by Ratcliffe and Gen. Michael Kurilla in briefings related to Iran.

Ratcliffe is said to take dictation from the Mossad and read the documents they’ve prepared to the president without any sense of critical detachment, or disclose that the assessments came from a foreign liaison rather than US intelligence.

Then there is Gen. Kurilla, who appears singularly focused in meetings with Trump on making the case for a US attack on Iran. In 2024, the pro-Netanyahu Israeli outlet Israel Hayon described Kurilla as “a vital asset to Israel.” The UK’s Telegraph referred to Kurilla this June as “Israel’s favorite general.”

Former Pentagon officials have even speculated that Israel’s decision to launch an unprovoked surprise attack on Iran this June 13 was partially influenced by Kurilla’s looming retirement in July, as Tel Aviv did not want to go to war without him present at CENTCOM
.

The Trump official told The Grayzone that Wiles has excluded Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, from crucial meetings where US intervention in Iran was discussed. That included a June 8 meeting at Camp David where Ratcliffe used a clumsy sports metaphor to insist that Iran was just days away from producing a nuclear weapon: “It’s like saying a football team marched 99 yards down the field, got to the one yard line and, oh, they don’t have the intention to score,” he argued to Trump.

Two days later, Gabbard released a social media video invoking the American military’s destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima with a nuclear bomb in 1945, and warned that a similar horror could soon unfold because “political elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers.”

Trump was reportedly infuriated by her comments. Asked by a reporter about Gabbard’s testimony this March that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program, Trump grumbled, “I don’t care what she said,” then echoed Ratcliffe’s view – and by extension, that of the Israelis: “I think they were very close to having [a nuclear weapon].”

This may explain why Gabbard released a June 20 statement on Twitter/X insisting that her views on Iran’s nuclear enrichment were faithfully aligned with Trump’s, and had been distorted by a “dishonest media” seeking to “manufacture division.” Though the statement reaffirmed her commitment to President Trump, her assessment of Iran’s nuclear program did not differ from the evaluation she delivered in March, which determined Iran was not currently pursuing a nuclear bomb.

“America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months,” Gabbard claimed on Twitter/X, “if they decide to finalize the assembly.”

According to the Trump official, Chief of Staff Wiles has also excluded Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth from meetings on Iran, relying instead on Kurilla to represent the US military.

Vice President JD Vance has held a parallel series of meetings on Iran, the official said. In contrast to those controlled by Wiles, Vance has encouraged robust debate and included diverse perspectives. In public, however, Vance is constrained by the obligation to demonstrate loyalty to Trump.

For his part, Trump’s views are said to be shaped by constant exposure to Fox News, which has transformed in the past two weeks into a 24/7 commercial for war on Iran. Fox News’ coverage has become so transparently influenced by Israel’s propaganda machine that Steve Bannon, the former White House chief of staff and intellectual architect of the America First movement, called for a Foreign Agents Registration Act investigation of the network.

As Trump heads back to Washington on June 21, Bannon lamented that “the party is on,” suggesting the president had decided to go to war on Israel’s behalf.

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