WASHINGTON: US political experts and former diplomats have expressed their fears over President Donald Trump’s policies saying that the incumbent has damaged White House relations with American and allied intelligence agencies and put national security at risk.
According to former intelligence officials, Trump’s attitude could make allies less willing to share their secrets with the United States, and render US spy chiefs less able to provide the White House with crucial security information.
“He cannot just, you know, go ahead and reveal classified information without creating some huge problems within the intelligence community,” Leon Panetta, the ex-CIA director, said, reacting to Trump’s confession of sharing top secret information with Russia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the United States.
“The information allegedly leaked to the Russians, reportedly on Islamic State group efforts to place laptop computer bombs on commercial aircraft flights, was provided by a Middle Eastern country “that made very clear that they did not want this intelligence shared,” Panetta said.
“The damage is that this country may cut off any kind of intelligence provided to the United States on very sensitive issues that relate to the national security of this country.”
Douglas Smith, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security, said Trump appeared to put at risk the “holy grail” of the spy world: the means and methods of intelligence collection.
“Imagine how a foreign government is going to feel when the information they view as highly sensitive — they’ve probably collected it in a very secretive and challenging way — is so cavalierly given away to a foreign power who is by no means our friend.”
Trump’s controversial meeting with Russian diplomats came one day after he threw his administration into turmoil by taking the rare step of firing his FBI director James Comey, who had been overseeing investigations into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia to skew the 2016 election.
Veteran Republican Senator John McCain warned that reports Trump divulged to Russia information provided by a US ally “sends a troubling signal to America’s allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future.”
