The American “Axios” website revealed, on Thursday, that four Israeli officials said that a statement made by General Mark Milley , Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing in the House of Representatives last week about the Iranian nuclear program, alarmed Israeli defense and intelligence officials to the extent that they protested and demanded Clarifications from the Biden administration.

According to Axios, Milley said, in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on Defense, that the United States "remains committed in terms of policy that Iran will not have an operational nuclear weapon." The four sources said that the word "field" created an impression among Israeli officials that the United States had changed its policy towards Iran and would tolerate Tehran's possession of a nuclear weapons program.

Milley said that it would take Iran only two weeks to produce enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon, adding that it would then take "several months only to produce an actual nuclear weapon."

Israeli officials confirmed to the site that they were "also concerned" by Milley's assessment of the time Iran would need to produce a nuclear weapon when it possesses a sufficient amount of enriched uranium up to 90% purity, and said that Milley's timetable is "several months" and that this schedule was not much shorter. Not only Israeli intelligence, but also an American estimate that was not shared with Israel, believing that it would take Iran one to two years to build a nuclear weapon.

The site says that "several days later, at a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee, Milley stressed that the United States is committed to ensuring that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon," and that Milley did not use the word "field" this time, but repeated the claim that Iran It would take "several months to produce an actual nuclear weapon" if it enriched enough uranium to 90%.

"U.S. policy remains the same," Joseph Holstead, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Axios, saying Milley's use of the word "field" in the past was military jargon.

The new approach of the Biden administration, according to "Axios", shows how concerned the United States is about the recent developments in Iran's nuclear program, while the United States did not rule out diplomacy as a means to reach an agreement to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

According to "Axios", the Israeli officials considered that Milley's statement before the House Armed Forces Committee came as the clarification they had hoped for, and the site attributed to a second senior Israeli official as saying, "We asked the Biden administration to fix it. And they did."

According to Western figures, Iran has now possessed up to 87.5 kilograms of enriched uranium at a rate of 60%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency report issued in late February.