Israel have 200 nuclear warheads, Colin Powell says in hacked emails

Hacker group DCLeaks, which has reported links to Russian intelligence, released emails from Powell this week.

The four-star U.S. general went on to publicly support the Iranian nuclear deal.”

Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, refusing to speak about its nuclear arsenal and never even admit that it has possession of nuclear weapons.

Speaking to Democratic party donor Jeffrey Leeds about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress focusing on the Iranian nuclear deal, he wrote that Iran would never use a nuclear weapon if it was able to develop one. He then stated that Israel has hundreds of nukes and Washington thousands, suggesting that such firepower would deter any Iranian action.

“Negotiators can’t get what he (Netanyahu) wants. Anyway, Iranians can’t use one if they finally make one. The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted on Tehran, and we have thousands,” he allegedly wrote.

The nuclear deal, signed between Iran and world powers, traded a pulling back of Iran’s nuclear program for a lifting of the sanctions on its economy.