{"id":21947,"date":"2026-03-19T04:51:46","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T04:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/cia-director-lifts-lid-on-what-iran-was-quietly-building-at-blistering-pace\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T04:51:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T04:51:46","slug":"cia-director-lifts-lid-on-what-iran-was-quietly-building-at-blistering-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/cia-director-lifts-lid-on-what-iran-was-quietly-building-at-blistering-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA Director Lifts Lid On What Iran Was Quietly Building At Blistering Pace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:relative\" data-narration-container=\"true\">\n<p>CIA Director John Ratcliffe said during a Wednesday hearing that the United States had moved on the Iranian regime in part because of the \u201calarming\u201d rate at which Iran was building and stockpiling weapons that could have eventually been fired at Americans or American allies.<\/p>\n<p>Ratcliffe took questions from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the reasons President Donald Trump\u2019s administration had viewed Iran as an imminent threat, saying the regime had been pressing onward with missile development at a rate that American defenses would not have been able to match.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WATCH:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">NEW: According to CIA Director Ratcliffe, Iran was developing missiles \u201cat rates that were alarming\u201d and faster than the United States could build defenses. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AXrGBsgtfM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pic.twitter.com\/AXrGBsgtfM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KassyAkiva\/status\/2034300261104033882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">March 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>When asked by Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) whether Iran was continuing production of both short and midrange ballistic missiles, Ratcliffe\u2019s answer was a definitive yes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes \u2026 continuing to develop them, and at rates that were alarming,\u201d Ratcliffe confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd what about our ability to respond to those? We have very good defensive capabilities, but it takes time for us to build our defensive capabilities,\u201d Rounds continued. \u201cWere they building their offensive capabilities while they were negotiating with us at a faster rate than we could build defensive capabilities?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d Ratcliffe declared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWere they continuing to work at and deliver additional resources to terrorist organizations that were affiliated with them in the region?\u201d Rounds pressed onward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d was Ratcliffe\u2019s reply.<\/p>\n<p>Rounds noted once again that all of this was taking place while Iran was supposedly negotiating with the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo in other words, while they were supposedly diplomatically working with us during that entire time, they were continuing with regard to their nuclear intentions, they were building additional missile systems to deliver \u2014 or conventional weapons systems \u2014 to threaten their neighbors,\u201d Rounds pieced it all together, saying that the end result could have been far more dangerous when eventually the United States would have been forced to go in and \u201cclean\u201d things up.<\/p>\n<p>Rounds further stated that he agreed with the Trump administration\u2019s assessment that, if such a thing were possible, it would be \u201csafer\u201d for the United States to deal with the threat posed by Iran before such capabilities could be fully realized.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI agree with that,\u201d Ratcliffe said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/cia-director-lifts-lid-on-what-iran-was-quietly-building-at-blistering-pace\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CIA Director John Ratcliffe said during a Wednesday hearing that the United States had moved on the Iranian regime in part because of the \u201calarming\u201d rate at which Iran was building and stockpiling weapons that could have eventually been fired at Americans or American allies. Ratcliffe took questions from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-current-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}