US Intelligence officials told senators on Tuesday that North Korea is not disarming it’s nuclear program, despite President Trump’s statements to the contrary. But one expert says the prospects of war is no longer a «serious possibility.»
The directors of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies testified Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the greatest threats facing the United States. China and Russia pose the biggest risks to the United States, and are more aligned than they have been in decades as they target the 2020 presidential election and American institutions to expand their global reach, officials told senators on Tuesday.
They described an array of economic, military and intelligence threats, from highly organized efforts by China to scattered disruptions by terrorists, hacktivists and transnational criminals.
«China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways — to steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure,» Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said.
The intelligence chiefs’ assessments broke with some past assertions by Trump, including on the threat posed by Russia to US elections and democratic institutions, the threat ISIS poses in Syria, and North Korea’s commitment to denuclearize.
Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat.
«We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,» Coats told senators. «Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization.»
The World’s Marco Werman spoke with Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation in Washington that seeks to eliminate nuclear weapons, about North Korea and it’s nuclear capabilities and the looming second summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un.
