North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, the Islamic State (IS) group remains a threat and the Iran nuclear deal is working, US intelligence agencies told the US Senate on Tuesday, directly contradicting US President Donald Trump.
The agencies made no mention of a crisis at the US-Mexican border for which Trump has considered declaring a national emergency.
Top security officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, presented an update to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on their annual assessment of global threats.
They warned of an increasingly diverse range of security dangers around the globe, from North Korean nuclear weapons to Chinese cyberespionage and Russian campaigns to undermine Western democracies.
Intelligence information does not support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would eliminate his nuclear weapons and the capacity for building more — a notion that is the basis of the US negotiating strategy, Coats said.
“Its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,” Coats told the committee.
The Worldwide Threat Assessment report on which Coats based his testimony said that US intelligence continues to “observe activity inconsistent with” full nuclear disarmament by North Korea.
“North Korea has for years underscored its commitment to nuclear arms, including through an order in 2018 to mass-produce weapons and an earlier law — and constitutional change — affirming the country’s nuclear status,” it said.
More broadly, the report on which Coats and the heads of other intelligence agencies based their testimony predicted that security threats to the US and its allies this year would expand and diversify, driven in part by China and Russia.
Moscow and Beijing are more aligned than at any other point since the mid-1950s, and their global influence is rising, even as US relations with traditional allies are in flux, it said.
“Some US allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perception of changing US policies on security and trade,” the report said, without providing examples or further explanation.
The report also said that the IS group “remains a terrorist and insurgent threat” inside Iraq, where the government faces “an increasingly disenchanted public.”
The assessment made no mention of a crisis at the US-Mexico border, but did predict additional US-bound migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with migrants preferring to travel in caravans in hopes of a safer journey.
In Syria, where Trump has ordered a full withdrawal of US troops, the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is likely to consolidate control, with Russia and Iran attempting to further entrench themselves, the report said.
Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the US and other Western nations, and by doing so has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat, the agencies said.
The assessment of Afghanistan projected a continued stalemate.
Without mentioning prospects for a peace deal, which appear to have improved only in recent days, the report said: “Neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic military advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year” if the US maintains its current levels of support.
Russia and perhaps other nations are likely to attempt to use social media and other means to influence next year’s US presidential election, Coats said.
“We expect our adversaries and strategic competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other’s experiences, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections,” the report said.
It specifically warned about Russia’s cyberattack capabilities.
“Moscow is now staging cyberattack assets to allow it to disrupt or damage US civilian and military infrastructure during a crisis,” it said.
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