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Agence France-Presse

US President Donald Trump branded his own intelligence services “naive” on Iran and in need of schooling in a deepening and unusually public row.
The Twitter broadside was a riposte to the more sober but equally emphatic rejection by the intelligence community Tuesday of many of Trump’s foreign policy claims.
Insisting that Iran’s nuclear programme remains dangerous, Trump said his intelligence advisers -who believe Tehran is largely abiding by an international commitment to shelve nuclear weapons ambitions – should be more realistic.
“The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!” Trump tweeted.
“Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019


....a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

Trump also touted what he said were his successes in Syria, where he has alarmed allies by abruptly announcing a withdrawal of US troops, and in North Korea, where he believes he can persuade reclusive leader Kim Jong-un to give up nuclear weapons.
In congressional testimony Tuesday, the nation’s top intelligence chiefs challenged all those positions.
This was far from the first time Trump has publicly doubted his national security experts. But the vehemence of his response Wednesday showed the depth of that split.
Reaction from Democratic opponents was swift.
US intelligence chief Dan Coats contradicts President Trump, says North Korea won’t give up nukes because they’re ‘critical to regime survival’
Adam Schiff, who heads the intelligence committee in the House of Representatives, said Trump’s dismissal of his officials’ advice was “deeply dangerous.”
“The president has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality,” Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the upper house’s intelligence committee, tweeted.

Trump’s administration has been consistently hawkish on Iran. He pulled the United States from a complex international deal meant to secure Iran’s abandonment of nuclear weapon ambitions, arguing that Tehran was cheating.
However, US intelligence agencies in an annual joint report published Tuesday said they “assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.”
There was also resistance from the intelligence officials on North Korea.
Trump has put great store by his personal relationship with Kim, whom he plans to meet in the near future for a second summit.
On Wednesday he insisted again that there is a “decent chance” of North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons.
US intelligence chiefs warn senators that China continues to grow as a security threat
But in the intelligence report, the view on North Korea was that its leaders continue to “view nuclear arms as critical to regime survival.”
Likewise, Trump boasted that Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, which once covered vast areas of Iraq and Syria, will “soon be destroyed”, something “unthinkable two years ago”.

But in testimony to the Senate on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats offered a less optimistic view, noting that “ISIS still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria … and thousands of dispersed supporters around the world, despite significant leadership and territorial losses.”
Closer to home, Trump has described illegal immigration by poor Central Americans as a national security crisis that he likens to an invasion and can only be stopped by building border walls.
The issue dominates his domestic agenda and has pushed him into a debilitating row with Congress, which so far has refused to provide wall funding.
Tellingly, the intelligence agencies’ group assessment on Tuesday referred to migration and cross-border crime, but did not mention any need for a wall.
Touching on one of the most explosive subjects in Washington, the agencies also underscored that they believe Russia meddled deeply on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 presidential election – which he has repeatedly denied – and can be expected to do the same in 2020.
Additional reporting by The Washington Post and Tribune News Service


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Donald Trump

Donald Trump takes to Twitter to slam his ‘naive’ US intelligence chiefs, disputes their assessments on Iran, North Korea and other threats

Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019. North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear capabilities, the top U.S. intelligence official said, even as President Donald Trump expresses confidence he can persuade Kim Jong Un to disarm. Photographer: Aaron P. Bernstein/Bloomberg

FILE - In this June 12, 2018, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump reaches to shake hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island in Singapore. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

US President Donald Trump and others pay their respects to Scott A. Wirtz, a Defence Intelligence Agency civilian and former Navy Seal who was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria. Photo: AFP

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In testimony before a Senate committee, the leaders of the intelligence services avoided direct contrasts with Trump, but backed differing views of Iran and North Korea
During a Wednesday tweet storm, Trump struck back at the intelligence community


US President Donald Trump disputed the leaders of his intelligence services with respect to Iran, North Korea, Islamic State, and other foreign policy challenges.
