Donald Trump appears to have blurted out top-secret intelligence on allied operations in enemy territory – again.
Reinforcing the reputation of his entire administration as being incontinent with secrets, he twice seemed to suggest at the Nato summit in the Hague that Israel had agents on the ground in Iran assessing the damage done by America’s bombardment of Fordow and other nuclear facilities.
Smarting from intelligence assessments leaked to the New York Times and CNN that cast doubt on his claim to have “obliterated” the nuclear programme with bunker-busting bombs and Tomahawk missiles, Trump used the most sensitive work of an allied nation to bolster his claims.
He insisted that his verdict of complete success was accurate, likening the US strikes on Iran to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that hastened the end of the Second World War, then revealed that more data would soon be coming from Israel, which means Mossad agents on the ground.
“It was hit brutally and it knocked it out… And it’s going to come out. Israel is doing a report on it now. I understand… You know, they have guys that go in there after the hit.”
Later, he said: “I think Israel is going to be telling us very soon because Bibi is going to have people involved in that whole situation.”
In May 2017, Trump blurted highly classified intelligence that had been shared with the US by Israel to the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, then the Russian ambassador to Washington. Lavrov is a former Russian intelligence officer.
He jeopardised the life of a source that was working inside the so-called Islamic State, caused Israel extreme operational embarrassment, and set off a damage control operation by the CIA and other agencies.
He then lost the trust of very close US allies in the Five Eyes secrets-sharing network, which includes Britain, the US, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. He has also damaged his standing among the spy agencies of the Middle East.
Since then he has stored secret files in his toilet at home where they could have been read by foreign agents.
His CIA chief, director of national intelligence, defence secretary and diplomatic envoy to Russia also used their private telephones to communicate real-time operational “eyes only” level details via the Signal app during US bombing missions against the Houthis in Yemen.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defence secretary, who uses his private phone for secret communications and would be summarily dismissed and risk prosecution if he did so in most Nato countries, was furious at the most recent leaks that provoked his boss to double down on his boasts about Iran.
“So this is a political motive here,” he said.
“Of course, we’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments, and CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.”
The president then went on to reveal what is likely to be either a lie or secret information somehow gleaned by agents from Iran. Tehran has insisted that the attacks on Fordow failed.
Trump said: “They went down, Iran went down to the site afterwards. They said it’s so devastated and they settled when they saw what we did to it… Two Iranians went down to see it and they called back and they said, ‘This place is gone’.”
Only secret agents working inside the Iranian government would have this kind of detail – that two people did an on-the-ground survey.
“It was hit brutally, and it knocked it out. The original word that I use, I guess it got us in trouble because it’s a strong word. It was obliteration. And you’ll see that. And it’s going to come out. Israel is doing a report on it now. I understand…
“You know, they have guys that go in there after the hit,” said the president of the United States – risking the lives of any agents who might be on the ground or in the Iranian inner circle.
He did so, he insisted, not to prove that he was right, but “I don’t want it for me. I want it for the pilots. I want it for the military. They did such a good job”.
Iran knows that Mossad operatives have been on the ground in their country for years. Israel’s foreign intelligence has posted its own videos of them flying drones against Iranian targets over the last couple of weeks and said that they had also identified Iranian missile locations.
Israel has also tracked and killed at least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists and many top security officials in their own homes and in moving vehicles.
But Trump’s latest outburst will further confirm that he’ll put his own need for praise over the lives of intelligence operatives on the ground.
Given his close relationship and history with Russia, that will be causing consternation at Nato as allies gather to plan how to meet Vladimir Putin’s land-grabbing ambitions.
