The intelligence community should perhaps go back to school - this is what US President Donald Trump said after a US intelligence report reported that Iran was not making nuclear weapons and that North Korea remained “unlikely to give up” its weapons stockpiles and production abilities.

Sputnik has discussed the issue with Mark Rossini, a former FBI Special Agent.

Sputnik: This is not the first time when Donald Trump has questioned the US intelligence chiefs using words like “passive”, “naïve” and just ignoring what they’ve said. What do you think of that situation in general and specifically in this case where he thinks that they should go back to school since Iran is not making anything?

Mark Rossini: Quite frankly, as a former FBI agent and a professionally trained intelligence officer, I am appalled and outraged. His utterance is actually feckless and irresponsible and his motive, I can only determine, is probably due to suit his own ego and maybe get his sycophantic base to somehow believe that he is the smartest guy in the room.

I have no idea where his frailty of his own inability to make a person comes from, but he is playing a dangerous game. The men and women of the US intelligence community are not in this for political gain.

They make their assessments based upon their sound, rational, impartial, non-partisan judgement and study of the subject. I’m, in short, appalled by his statement as everybody should be in the intelligence community.

Sputnik: This is very unprecedented. Why do you think Trump does this? I think that there hasn’t been any other president that has so openly conflicted with the opinions of his intelligence community. And this has happened numerous times; I mean there have been times when he said "I don’t believe them".

Mark Rossini: He does this for his own frail ego; he does this for his own delusions of his grandeur and capability and brains. Someone who consistently speaks about how smart they are and having to tell everybody else how smart they are and how brilliant they are, quite frankly, has issues with their own capability.

I, as a New-Yorker, we have always known in New York what a liar he is and conman and this is just a perpetuation of the con. I don’t know how much more forceful I can be in my language to speak about this subject. It is, again, irresponsible and feckless. And he does it for some sort of ego-suiting.

That’s the only thing that I can come up logically as to why he is saying and doing it.

© AP Photo / Aaron Favila Trump Vows to Return US Troops From Afghanistan if Peace Deal Signed With Taliban

Mark Rossini: I have not read the intelligence report that you’ve just cited.

And, quite frankly, I do agree that Tehran is a threat. It still is a threat understandably, because until I hear the Iranian mullahs denounce Hezbollah and accept the existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people they will remain a threat in my eyes unquestionably.

But having not read the report, I can probably understand what the intelligence community was saying is that yes they are a threat per se, but they are trying to change.

There is a movement within the country of the youth, of the educated that want to break free of that theocracy. They want to move ahead in the modern world, they want to escape that pressure.

Whereas in North Korea we have no such ability, we have no system to gauge.

We know that Kim Jong-un controls the internet, he controls access totally to all the information out there; and his people are blind to what’s going on in the rest of the world and have no revolutionary movement in the country to move forward and join the 21st century.

This is the difference between the two countries. There is potential there for Iran to escape and there are signs, perhaps that the intelligence community’s seeing and why they wrote that report, that there is ability to foster change and move forward and break the grip of the theocracy.

Sputnik: On the other hand, Trump is saying after reading this report that he is very optimistic about North Korea; he doesn’t seem to agree with this report that there is a bigger threat from North Korea. Why?

Mark Rossini: Again, I think he does that for his own personal ego because remember like he did saying he defeated ISIS[Daesh] and on the campaign trail he said he knew more about ISIS[Daesh] than the generals.

Yeah, some guy who had bone spurs and didn’t serve in the military in Vietnam has a lot to say about military intelligence.

That said, he came out ahead with North Korea from the beginning and said the threat was over, he flew back and when they got off the airplane and said the threat is over there are no more nuclear weapons.

What total utter BS! Again, he took a stance and just like he learned from his mentor Roy Cohen, you never go back on your word, you never give in, you never change what you state, you just keep fighting and fighting and fighting; saying the lie over and over again and it eventually becomes true. Of course, his ego will not let him backtrack from that statement, that is why.

I can’t be any more plainer than that. This is my opinion. This is what I feel. This is my opinion. It’s my observation.

Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Mark Rossini and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia and many other countries.



The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.