Fear: Trump in the White House(60)
I began checking around about whether North Korea was “well within a year” of a new ICBM nuclear weapon capability. At the top levels of the Pentagon, I was told “There is nothing like that,” providing an absolute knockdown of my information.
At the top levels of the intelligence community, I was told “there was nothing new” and “no significant change” in the two-year-plus assessment. There was nothing to be alarmed about.
I talked with a person with the broadest, most authoritative access to such current intelligence. The absolute denials were repeated emphatically, categorically. Then something happened that had never occurred in 46 years of reporting. This person said, “If I am wrong I will apologize to you.”
That was definitely a first. But the meaning was unclear. I have had officials lie outright about something very sensitive. Asked later, they have said they felt it was better to dissemble. Why agree to talk or meet? Silence could be interpreted as confirmation, they usually replied. That is the real world of reporting on sensitive intelligence matters. The offer to apologize if wrong had never happened before to me.
I decided not to seek out the person to get the apology, but I was soon entitled to one.
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Just over a month later, on July 3, North Korea successfully tested its first ICBM, a Hwasong-14. The missile only traveled 930 kilometers and was in the air only 37 minutes, but the intelligence showed that with a flatter trajectory, it could possibly have reached the United States mainland. This was what my source had warned about two months earlier.
Trump was briefed that night. The next day, July 4, he hosted an Independence Day celebration at the White House. That afternoon, McMaster chaired an emergency principals meeting in the Situation Room. Trump was not present.
CIA Director Pompeo said there was confirmation of an ICBM. It had been fired via an eight-axle mobile vehicle that had been imported from China. So much for the hope that China would be a restraining influence on North Korea.
Tillerson said he had been unable to contact the Chinese, but had called for an emergency meeting in the U.N. Security Council. “We need to work with Russia to get their support and focus on countries that are not abiding by the existing sanctions,” he said. “This ought to be a topic of discussion at the G20, especially with Japan and the Republic of Korea.”
Tillerson raised the concern that the administration was targeting China with steel tariffs at a time when they needed its help to corral North Korea. He was also worried about allies’ reactions to Trump’s threatened steel tariffs, like Japan, South Korea and the European Union.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said, “China has been avoiding us, but eventually they agreed to a U.N. Security Council meeting tomorrow.” The U.S. needed to identify more companies who did business with North Korea for additional sanctions.
“We need a persuasive press statement to gain allies on this,” Mattis said. “We don’t want to show any daylight between us and the Republic of Korea.” He walked through military contingency plans, including possible strikes in North Korea—the full range, from limited pinpoints to an all-out attack, and even a leadership strike. The U.S. didn’t have all of the ships and other assets it might need in the region. They were not ready for every contingency, and it would take time to get everything in line.
“Our first choice ought to be U.N.-led sanctions,” Mnuchin said. “Otherwise we can have another dozen primary sanctions available.”
Mike Rogers, NSA director, outlined the United States’ defensive posture on cyber security. He did not address offensive cyber attack capabilities.
“There really ought to be a question of how much technical data we share with China and Russia,” cautioned DNI Dan Coats, “in terms of what we picked up about the ICBM and other things.” U.S. intelligence had a pretty full picture, and it had to be protected.
“We’re going to find out pretty soon here whether China is with us as promised,” said Tillerson. If the United States was ready to impose a ban on American citizens traveling to North Korea, we ought to get other countries to do the same.
“The big challenge is going to be the loss of human intelligence,” Pompeo said, alluding to a possible impact on sensitive CIA sources.
“I hope we go slow on this,” said Mattis. He knew the details of the Special Access Programs. “That loss of human intelligence would be a big thing.”
“Continued travel poses the risk of hostage taking,” Tillerson said, but he did not disagree with Pompeo and Mattis about the importance of the human sources.
The consensus was that without taking bold action, the U.S. risked being seen as tepid and lacking in the new normal of an ICBM-equipped North Korea.
North Korea’s missile launch was a full-scale crisis: Kim Jong Un now had mobile ICBM capability and missiles that could potentially reach the homeland. U.S. intelligence had incontrovertible evidence that the Chinese had supplied the eight-axle vehicle that was a key component of these complex missile systems. The CIA risked losing sensitive sources if the U.S. tightened travel restrictions. And if the president decided to order some sort of significant military response, the assets would not be immediately available.
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I later learned that the person I had spoken to in May believed the information to be so sensitive, it had been decided that it was better to lie.