Trump’s new respect for intel experts
Not long after scores of U.S. Navy cruise missiles streaked toward Syria’s Shayrat Air Base last Thursday, I received a call from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. He told me about the U.S. strike on the airfield and aircraft used in the chemical attack by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad against his own people, and the military and legal issues involved.
When the director, as the head of the intelligence community, stated that the targeted airfield had been involved in the chemical weapons attack, he would have been providing the best assessment of all our intelligence agencies. That view undoubtedly informed the president’s judgment that Assad was responsible, and that his regime — and the Russians — were lying about the attack having been the result of an errant strike on a rebel chemical weapons cache.
This was among the first times the new president relied on the intelligence community’s assessment to make a life-or-death decision. The intelligence agencies could not tell him whether to use force — that’s not their role — but they could, and undoubtedly did, convey information about Assad’s culpability, the likelihood of casualties (including Russian casualties), and the potential reactions of the regime, the Russians, the Iranians, the Turks, the Saudis, Hezbollah and others.
One thing is certain: Before he gave the order, the president had to both trust and respect the work of the professionals who informed his decision. The U.S. intelligence community for years has devoted significant resources to understanding the horrific multisided civil war in Syria and the humanitarian disaster that it has unleashed.
This strike was carried out by U.S. forces alone, but if the president had sought the cooperation of other nations, his success in persuading them of Assad’s responsibility for the murder of innocents would also depend on whether they too believed that our intelligence was good enough to be trusted. This is why a healthy relationship between the president and our intelligence community is so important.
It is also why the destructive accusations leveled against the agencies by the president must stop. It is one thing to challenge analysis and conclusions; it is something altogether different to damn the entire enterprise and belittle the work of tens of thousands of patriotic Americans.
The widespread media coverage of the gas attack, Assad’s repeated use of such weapons in the past, and the flimsiness of the Syrian cover story eased the Trump administration’s efforts to persuade the American public and the international community that the Syrian regime was the perpetrator.
This will not always be the case, and the president would be wise not to damage the credibility of his intelligence agencies.
When the Transportation Security Administration said last month that it was implementing a “laptop ban” on certain international routes, the necessity for such a change was greeted with skepticism. Having spent months tearing down the intelligence agencies, the president now needed to implement a policy change based on their reporting and without telling the American people what he knew — only that they should trust him.
The need for others to confirm the intelligence underlying the policy change took a rare turn when the White House press secretary — someone who doesn’t often cite my views with approval — used my support for the measure as proof of its legitimacy. I certainly don’t mind, but it was yet another indication of why the president’s disparagement of the intelligence community’s work left the White House in need of outside validation. When President Trump first saw the images of those beautiful children suffocating and dying in their parents’ arms, he was clearly moved. No longer was he free to criticize his predecessor for even contemplating action against the Assad regime over its use of chemical weapons; now he was the commander in chief and responsible for the consequences of action or inaction.
I hope that it was also the moment he realized that the success of his presidency and our country’s security depends in part on his relationship with the intelligence community. It is a relationship he would do well to cultivate.