Contradicting several foreign-policy positions staked out by President Trump, top US intelligence officials told senators Tuesday that ISIS has not been defeated, Iran is probably not producing nukes and North Korea is unlikely to abandon its nuclear-weapons program.
Adding to the grim update of world threats, Russia and China are locked in “a race for technological and military superiority” over the US, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee in testimony with CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray and other top intel officials.
The two US adversaries “are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s,” Coats said — a stark reference to the Cold War era when fears of all-out nuclear war terrorized Americans.
Coats based his testimony on a US intelligence report dubbed the Worldwide Threat Assessment, and also predicted that security threats to the US and its allies this year would expand and diversify.
Coats said that Russia and perhaps other countries were likely to use social media and other means to influence the 2020 presidential election.
“Russia’s social-media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities, and criticizing perceived anti-Russia politicians,” the report said.
“Moscow may employ additional influence tool kits — such as spreading disinformation, conducting hack-and-leak operations, or manipulating data — in a more targeted fashion to influence US policy, actions, and elections.”
And despite repeated claims from Team Trump that ISIS had been defeated, the report said the terror group “very likely will continue to pursue external attacks from Iraq and Syria against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States.”
With the expected withdrawal of US forces from Syria, the intelligence assessment suggested the regime of strongman Bashar al Assad would not focus on clearing ISIS from the war-ravaged country.
Coats also said Iran was apparently not actively producing nuclear weapons — and was adhering to the nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew.
“We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device,” Coats said, adding that Iranian hard-liners have “publicly threatened to push the boundaries” of the nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015 if the regime did not reap the benefits it expected.
Coats also cast doubt on Trump’s declaration that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat to the US as a result of his historic summit with dictator Kim Jong-un, declaring that the North was unlikely to entirely dismantle its nuclear arsenal.
Coats noted Kim has expressed support for ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons and has not recently test-fired a nuclear-capable missile or conducted a nuclear test.
“Having said that, we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,” Coats said.
With Wires