[Infowarrior] - Trump makes intel community queasy

[Richard Forno]

(his first briefing is this afternoon. --rick)

Trump makes intel community queasy
By Matt Latimer

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-intelligence-community-unhappy-227120

Just ahead of his first classified briefing, Donald Trump said he didn't trust the work of America's intelligence agencies.

Well, they don't exactly trust him either.

Interviews over the past several months with current and former intelligence officials and intelligence experts revealed significant trepidation about the notion of a Trump presidency — an uneasiness that the Republican nominee’s latest comments are likely to exacerbate.

Several sources cited Trump's unpredictability, his harsh rhetoric about Muslims, his vocal support for torture and his suggestions that he'd go after terror suspects' families as causes of concern, even among the most hawkish elements of the intelligence world.

"The wholesale slaughter of families of terrorists — it is understood as a war crime," an Army intelligence officer told POLITICO. "You can see how emotionally it might seem like a satisfying" thing to say, "but no matter how much you might wait to raze and salt the earth ... people understand the right versus wrong component of it."

A terrorism expert at a D.C. think tank described the mood about a possible President Trump in the intelligence community as "fearful."

"Most people assume that even if he got in he would be forced to moderate because of the realities of your office and the inevitable restrictions on your power," he added. "But the president has the lead on foreign policy and security. The president can do a lot without any sort of restraints from Congress."

As is standard for presidential nominees, Trump on Wednesday was due to get a classified intelligence briefing. The real estate mogul has said he will bring along to the session retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn has raised eyebrows in the U.S. national security establishment because of his appearances on a Kremlin-funded TV network, especially at a time of spiking tensions between Moscow and Washington, and his presence at a classified session has rung alarms.

But Trump defended Flynn, widely viewed as a maverick inside the intelligence community, as "tough" and "smart" in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night. Then, asked, if he trusts "intelligence," the real estate mogul said: "Not so much from the people that have been  doing it for our country."

"I mean, look what's happened over the last 10 years. Look what's happened over the years. It's been catastrophic. And, in fact, I won't use some of the people that are sort of your standards, you know, just use them, use them, use them, very easy to use them, but I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions," said Trump, who was also to be joined by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the briefing. "You look at Iraq. You look at the Middle East. It's a total powder keg. It's a — if we would have never touched it, it would have been a lot better."

Flynn has been especially vocal about claims that intelligence officials have downplayed the rise of the Islamic State at the White House’s behest. Earlier this month, a House Republican task force alleged that U.S. Central Command officials had changed intelligence reports to make it appear the fight against the terrorist group is going better than it really is, exposing frustrations within the national security community over the Obama administration’s approach to Syria and Iraq.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a major Trump booster, said he agreed with Trump's decision to have Flynn accompany him for the briefing because the retired general will "be able to ask critical questions." Giuliani also slammed the intelligence agencies' work product as "terrible."

"I mean, our intelligence has really let us down on a number of occasions, and there's something substantially wrong with the way we gather intelligence," Giuliani said. "When the president of the United States can say just a short-- really, just a short while ago that [the Islamic State terrorist network] is the JV team, something is wrong with our intelligence."

Asked about Trump's criticisms, the CIA deferred comment to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which in turn declined to comment. Such reticence is in line with the agencies' traditional mandate to stay out of the political realm. And in many ways, most people in the intelligence community's rank and file will follow that mandate no matter what happens in the campaign or on Election Day, analysts said.

"It’s probably, within the agency, extremely apolitical," said Soufan Group analyst Patrick Skinner of the CIA, where he used to be a case officer. "You really just don’t talk about it."

Skinner, added, however, that people at senior levels in the agencies "might be wondering about priorities." He and others also said a Trump win in November won't necessarily repel future recruits nor lead to mass retirements, at least not immediately.

"If there is a President Trump — that’s kind of a funny sentence to say — then there will probably be a lot of hope that the directors — all the top appointees — would be very diligent in their duties," Skinner said. "There has to be some kind of faith that the system works, but he’s running on a no-faith-in-the-system campaign."

"The civil servants will trudge on. They know how to slow-roll people whose ideas they deem unworkable," added a former National Security Council official. "That’s what the bureaucracy does. You’ll see quite a bit of that when Trump comes in."

Within the broader intelligence industry — which includes companies that produce the technology and weaponry used by the various agencies — people are "incredulous,” according to a consultant with extensive contacts in that field. “People can hardly believe that it’s happening.”

"What people like is predictable outcomes," the consultant said, pointing to Trump’s mercurial policy shifts as especially problematic for an industry that craves certainty. That being said, he added, “If the public indicates or seems to show that they’re going to vote for Trump, I would think that businessmen would revert to their typical behavior and figure out how they can get their share.”

For many in the intelligence realm, especially those at the mid-level to senior ranks, the most frustrating thing about Trump is his willingness to dismiss allies, including those in Muslim-majority countries, and alliances, such as NATO.

"It comes up because the intel folks are highly dependent on liaison relationships," the D.C. think-tank expert said. "The war fighters also have the same issue. They are dependent frequently on local allies to engage enemy forces. And right now enemy forces are [the Islamic State] and al Qaeda, and again our partners are Muslims."

Then, of course, there's Trump's seeming fondness for Russia and its strongman president, Vladimir Putin. The Republican nominee has said the U.S. needs to cooperate more with Russia on issues such as the bloody civil war in Syria, where Washington and Moscow are frequently at odds. The fact that Flynn is at his side is of particular concern to national security leaders who worry about Putin's long-term meddling intentions for his country’s role in the world.

In media appearances on Wednesday, California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he was confident that the briefing that Trump receives will not include exceptionally sensitive information, but he still sounded a note of warning.

"It gives me a lot of heartburn ... that we would share any information about Russia, particularly if you imagine the topic of Russian cyber efforts came up," Schiff told MSNBC. "I would feel very uncomfortable getting into that with a candidate with this kind of background.”

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It's better to burn out than fade away.