Trump’s twitter war with the IC & their history of failures 2-8-2019

8, February 2019             Trump’s twitter war with the IC & their history of failures

The intelligence community of the United States (IC) is a bewildering behemoth consisting of 16 separate intelligence agencies and a 17th administrative office that works separately to conduct intelligence activities to support foreign policy and the national security of the United States.

The agencies rarely share information in an effort to protect their fiefdoms.

The 9/11 attack was pivotal time which spawned additional security agencies in a bid to keep “Americans safe”. There doesn’t appear to be a metric to gauge their success. Yet tens of billions have been spent in propping up these agencies. Stung by the agencies criticism of his false claims of victory over ISIS, the president’s itchy twitter fingers pounded out his disdain for the IC. Although his criticism was a visceral response, the IC does have a history of colossal failures. These failures have cost US taxpayers trillions of dollars, lost lives and undermined the credibility of the IC.

A few examples: in 2003, the then-CIA Director George Tenet’s confidently announced that the deadly threat posed by Saddam’s WMD stockpile — a “slam-dunk,” They were taken by surprise when India went nuclear in 1998, just as they had been stunned when the Soviets went nuclear in 1949. They didn’t expect Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. In January 1962, the CIA pronounced it “unlikely” the Soviets would attempt to build military bases in Cuba any time in the next 20 years. They didn't foresee the Communist invasion of South Korea in 1950, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
In 2005, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission — formed to examine the badly flawed estimates of Iraqi WMDs — summarized its findings. “Across the board,” the commission reported, “the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors.” And finally, the devastating attack of 9/11 came as a complete surprise. To protect of the sordid role of Saudi Arabia and the UAE the full 9/11 report remains hidden to the American public.

Perhaps President Trump’s private life has a lot to do with his lack of attention to national security. Clearly sleep deprived and crushed by the burdens of his presidency, President

Trump takes out executive time with self-grooming, making phone calls, sending tweets, resting and watching Fox and Friends.