US intel chief denounces ‘warmongers’ after Hiroshima visit

WASHINGTON: US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard warned on Tuesday after a trip to Hiroshima that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, in an extraordinary, if veiled, pitch for diplomacy.

Gabbard did not specify her concerns, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly brandished the specter of nuclear war as he cautions Europe and the United States against support for Ukraine.

Gabbard, a former congresswoman who has faced criticism in the past for her views on Russia, posted a video of grisly footage from the world´s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

On August 6, 1945, the United States obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb´s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving around 74,000 people dead by the end of the year. Japan surrendered on August 15.