I love my media colleagues, but they and others being made decoys in President Donald Trump’s secret, switcheroo plane swap in Turkey last month so the president could avoid a perceived assassination threat is not the top story. We should focus on the first fact: that there was a perceived international assassination threat against the U.S. president so serious that security officials believed he had to be pulled off Air Force One, put on a separate plane and secreted away from a NATO summit in Ankara, the capital city of a member country.
That shouldn’t happen.
The escapade illustrates three worrying issues: First, whether an actual threat existed or not, there appear to be U.S. intelligence and security gaps. Second, animosity toward Trump has reached a level that such a foreign attempt would seem plausible, especially in Turkey. Third, U.S. and Israeli intelligence services have credibility problems, which many believe are being caused by the countries’ top leaders.
The escapade illustrates three worrying issues: First, whether an actual threat existed or not, there appear to be U.S. intelligence and security gaps.
Was the threat real? If not, then why did U.S. officials so readily believe it? According to multiple reports, the warning did not come from U.S. intelligence; Israeli intelligence alleged there was a threat from an Iranian-sourced shoulder-fired missile. Such missiles are especially frightening because they are so hard to detect or defend. CIA officials assessed the claim as “Israeli-derived, not U.S.-generated, and viewed as low confidence,” The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Those CIA officials reportedly told Trump administration officials as much. The president was moved anyway.
As with any credible threat of presidential assassination, Congress should quickly hold classified and unclassified hearings with Secret Service, U.S. military and intelligence leaders. The questions should focus on what those involved knew before and during the summit, when they knew it and why the decision was made for Air Force One to take off without Trump but loaded with Cabinet members, federal government staff, military personnel and, yes, journalists.
Unfortunately, Republican leaders in Congress have been unwilling to challenge or undercut the president. Trump said Tuesday he was just obeying the Secret Service and military: “They wanted me to do it, so I do it. I do what they say.” But the White House, Pentagon, and State Department have large advance teams that scout out every detail of foreign visits such as a NATO summit, and if this threat was real, then something was missed. If the threat wasn’t real, then that’s a problem, too. The buck should stop somewhere.
I’ve never flown aboard an Air Force One, but as a Pentagon reporter in the traveling press corps, I know why reporters are expressing such shock and outrage. I spent what feels like half my life flying on its military twins, the E4-B “doomsday planes” used by the secretary of defense. While Air Force One is the president’s elegant flying Oval Office, the E4-B is the SecDef’s 1970s-era workhorse flying nuclear command center, complete with a five-mile-long cable to send secret launch orders to ballistic-missile submarines.
The farther we traveled from Washington, the more our traveling parties felt like traveling families. Reporters don’t wear the uniforms of the military leaders they cover, and government officials don’t hold their pens, but in those planes and on those trips, our lives were in each other’s hands. Every planned movement — from the time we left Joint Base Andrews to each motorcade, helicopter ride and event — is protected for operational security, or “OPSEC.” Trust is how we survived. I can’t imagine landing in Washington to find out we were sent into the air as bait.
I can’t imagine landing in Washington to find out we were sent into the air as bait.
My experience covering the Pentagon confirms the long-held truth that foreign intelligence, security and military professionals maintain close and trusting relationships despite the politics of their country’s leaders. But while Israeli intelligence historically is known to be among the world’s best, in recent years, the credibility of Israel’s security services under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, in the eyes of many, stretched thin or vanished. True or not, many critics believe the United States launched a war on Iran, not because there was an imminent threat but because, in a phone call with Trump, Netanyahu told Trump, “Iran’s supreme leader and his top advisers were all set to meet at one location.”
If the shoulder-fired missile threat was an Israeli ruse to dupe the American president into continuing a war with Iran, and the U.S. can’t trust intelligence from its Israeli allies, then we have a problem much bigger than a catering truck.
Turkey may be the dupe in this drama. NATO deliberately held a summit in Ankara to prove a point that it was safe enough to do so, yet Trump could not depart in his own plane. Is it wise to keep sending world leaders so close to Iran and Russia?
From start to finish this incident reveals too many elevated risks threatening national security and the president’s. As long as Trump continues to direct U.S. forces to attack Iran, any presidential movement puts everyone traveling near him at greater risk. For now, Trump has said he expects to travel back to China for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, meeting this fall and to visit his golf course in Ireland in September. Those trips would be much safer for everyone aboard Air Force One if he chose to end the war he started. Until then, security teams will have a harder time protecting them all.
Kevin Baron is a national security analyst, founder of Elevation Global Strategies and host of Elevation Live!, a conversation series on global affairs, sports and culture. As a journalist and media executive, he has reported on politics, defense and foreign policy from the Pentagon to war zones for more than two decades, including as founding executive editor of Defense One and editorial director of POLITICO Live, and for Foreign Policy, Stars and Stripes, The Boston Globe, and other news outlets.