NYT: Israel warned US that Iran may use chemical arms; some in Washington doubt it

Israel has told the United States that Iran is weighing the use of chemical weapons, and American officials are split over whether to believe it, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing American and regional sources.

According to the report, senior Israeli officials have spent the past two weeks briefing US intelligence agencies and others. They described the chemical threat as more urgent than Iran's nuclear ambitions. Israeli intelligence assessed that Iran is moving quickly to develop technology that would let it fit a chemical agent onto a missile, or smuggle one into Israel or another country.

Some senior American officials took the information seriously, the paper said. They pointed to a run of recent warnings that Iran is preparing to strike American interests. Others were deeply skeptical. They see the intelligence as part of a pressure campaign by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to persuade the Trump administration to resume wide-scale fighting against Iran.

The Times said there is almost no dispute in the US intelligence community that Iran is developing chemical weapons. The disagreement is over whether its leaders would actually use them, especially if Iran is not attacked again.

Gulf doubts

Israel shared part of the material with officials in Gulf states, the report said. Some of them doubted that Iran is drawing up plans to use chemical weapons. They believe Israel is trying to push the US and its partners back into a more intense phase of the war. One regional official told the paper that Israel gave Gulf governments assessments that Iran is making its chemical arsenal operational but shared no evidence. Gulf governments, he said, did not take the claims seriously.

For some American officials, the warnings recall the faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in 2002. Experts and officials told the Times that mounting a chemical warhead on a ballistic missile is not hard. Dispersing the agent effectively is harder, and smuggling a device across a border is difficult. A drone was mentioned as another possible delivery route.

Dana Stroul, a former senior Pentagon Middle East policy official in the Biden administration, told the paper Iran has been known for more than two decades to stockpile chemical components and has never used them. She warned, however, that Tehran could feel "existential pressure" and cross the line into direct offensive use.

Home Front Command drills

The Times also reported that preparing for a chemical attack is not a central part of the Home Front Command exercises under way across Israel this week. The Home Front Command runs civilian defense. Two officials in the command told the paper that no broad reminders on protective guidelines have gone out to officers or the public. The IDF declined to comment.

Iran's state television has carried talk of such weapons. Maariv reported that on a programme on Iranian state TV's Channel 1, the son of a former Revolutionary Guards commander, now a senior military adviser to the supreme leader, spoke explicitly of using chemical weapons to turn Israel into scorched earth, "unfit for habitation." That quote is Maariv's translation from Persian.

Tehran denies having chemical weapons and has called similar accusations psychological warfare by Israel and Netanyahu. Iran acknowledged in 2003 that it had built chemical capabilities during the Iran-Iraq war, but said it later dismantled them.

Diplomacy and a possible strike

The intelligence transfer comes as Washington and Tehran explore a diplomatic breakthrough while preparing for renewed fighting. American officials told the Times that US Central Command has a plan to strike Iran starting Wednesday, after the midterm elections and with three aircraft carriers in the region. Carrying it out depends on President Donald Trump's approval. Diplomats are working on a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, address Iran's nuclear programme and put off further military action. The US buildup may also serve as leverage for that effort, the report said.

US intelligence agencies assess the threat to Americans in the Middle East and elsewhere as the highest since the war began in February, the Times said. A warning memo went to administration officials on October 23.

The paper also tied Netanyahu's efforts to his political position after Israel's election, which left him without a clear path to a government. Some analysts told it he might use a security emergency to pressure opposition leaders into joining a coalition.

A spokesman for Netanyahu's office told the paper that Israel is closely tracking every threat from the "Iranian terror regime" and is prepared to meet it. The White House did not comment, but an American official said Trump would defend the US and its allies against any threat.