President Donald Trump has wrapped his initial actions in office in the name of keeping the United States safe, but several experts and former top U.S. officials say they worry his moves on refugees, immigration, and reorganizing the National Security Council could hurt the country’s national security.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order indefinitely blocking all refugees from Syria, suspending the entire broader refugee admissions program for 120 days, and stopping citizens from “countries of particular concern” — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — from entering the United States for 90 days. The following day, he issued a memo giving the president’s chief strategist a permanent seat at the National Security Council table while diminishing the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence. The Cipher Brief spoke to several members of its network to assess whether these actions will, as Trump claims, “make America safe again.”
On changes to the National Security Council
Trump’s memo on the NSC means Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon — the former publisher of far-right Breitbart News who has described himself as a “Leninist” who wants “to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment” and has no high-level military or national security experience — secures a full seat on the “principals committee.” The CJSC and the DNI, meanwhile, are not listed as regular attendees, but “shall attend where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday said that “we recognize that certain homeland security issues may not be military issues and it would not be in the best interest of the Joint Chief's valuable time to be at these meetings.” According to Spicer, “if the issue is on, you know, pandemic flu or other domestic type natures that don't involve the military, it would be a waste of time to drag the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over.”
Experts, however, pushed back against that conception of the Chairman’s role in particular.
Retired Adm. Jonathan Greenert, former Chief of Naval Operations, said the Chairman will likely be needed for issues exactly like those Spicer referenced, pointing to examples of military involvement in dealing with emergencies such as the Ebola outbreak or Hurricane Katrina.
"I can assure you, Gen. Joe Dunford is not looking for more meetings and things to do, and he likely does not aspire to expand his control over White House forums. Without CJCS presence at Principal Committee or NSC meetings, I think precious time and relevant input could be lost,” he told The Cipher Brief. “There are numerous recent historical examples of non-defense crises — natural disasters, disease outbreak, refugees — needing the unique rapid response capabilities of our military, early on.”
“Without the military advice of the CJCS at these meetings, one could end up calling the CJCS over on short notice with the crisis worsened,” Greenert noted.
Retired four-star general and former Vice Chief of Army Staff Jack Keane said that if the chief strategist is going to be offering advice on foreign policy and national security to the president, “then it’s better that he’s in the national security process so he can hear everyone’s viewpoints as opposed to it just being reported to him from a secondary source.”
But it does not “make any sense to me” that the Chairman would not be a full-time member, Keane said.
“All these chairmen are somewhere around 35 years of international experience as a public servant. And they have led a rich life in terms of the different parts of the world they’ve been, the different cultural experiences they’ve had, and the varying groups of people they have been dealing with all those 35 years,” Keane said. “And to suggest that the Chairman should only be present when the military is being discussed, in my judgment, clearly undervalues the experience that senior military leader would bring to any discussion dealing with foreign policy and national security, not just those that have a military-orientation to it.”
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Sunday it was a “big mistake” to only have the the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the DNI attend when, as the memo states, “issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.”
"My biggest concern is there are actually, under the law, only two statutory advisers to the National Security Council and that's the Director of Central Intelligence, or the DNI, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think pushing them out of the National Security Council meetings, except when their specific issues are at stake, is a big mistake," Gates said on ABC’s “This Week.” "I think that they both bring a perspective and judgment and experience to bear that every president, whether they like it or not, finds useful."
The former National Security Adviser for President Barack Obama, Susan Rice, also weighed in, tweeting “this is stone cold crazy. After a week of crazy. Who needs military advice or intell to make policy on ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan, DPRK?”
On the refugee and travel ban
Several top former U.S. officials also took issue with Trump casting his executive order banning refugees and people from a list of Muslim-majority countries in the guise of protecting national security. Trump tweeted on Monday that “if the ban were announced with a one week notice, the ‘bad’ would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad ‘dudes’ out there!”
Former Acting Director of the CIA John McLaughlin called the executive order an “amateur move that shows this administration does not know and must soon learn a critical lesson — that its actions have secondary and tertiary consequences, most unintended, that it needs to understand before it pulls the trigger.”
The only way to do that, he wrote in an email to The Cipher Brief, is “by what they didn’t do: bringing all the expertise to the table — Homeland Security, State, Defense, intelligence — and considering all angles. That's what makes government hard compared to campaigning.”
“Otherwise those agencies are left to clean up the mess, which is not what smart people sign on to do. Keep it up and they will bail,” McLaughlin noted.
As to the effects of the EO, McLaughlin said it is “hard to tell,” but there is no question “that terrorists can pump it into their propaganda machines. Look for it in the next ISIL and al Qaeda recruitment videos.”
And in response to the news that the ACLU had filed suit against Trump’s order, former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden tweeted, “Imagine that. ACLU and I in the same corner.” He also told The Washington Post this weekend that the order “inarguably has made us less safe. It has taken draconian measures against a threat that was hyped. The byproduct is it feeds the Islamic militant narrative and makes it harder for our allies to side with us.”
Greenert noted that Trump is “doing what he told people he was going to do in the campaign.”
“If these directives have to be adjusted – for example, the temporary ban on travel – my view is those who supported the President would understand,” Greenert said. “They prefer the bold action for the sake of, say security, than starting at the status quo, and adding iterative measures slowly.”
“Now, the ‘how’ and ‘to what degree’ will need be sorted,” he noted.
Keane, meanwhile, said he supported the president’s executive order. "He is taking some precautionary measures to make certain that our screening process is all it should be,” Keane said.
The United States has an extremely stringent vetting process for refugees, and people attempting to enter the U.S. under that status must register with the United Nations and undergo an interview and status approval from the U.N. prior to referral to the United States. If the person is referred to the U.S., they are screened by several different agencies, undergo background checks, are fingerprinted, and individually interviewed over a period that typically takes 18 to 24 months. Refugees from Syria are also subject to additional required reviews.
As a result of fatal jihadist-driven terrorist attacks since 9/11 — the 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting, the 2009 Little Rock shooting, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2015 Chattanooga shootings, and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting — 89 people have been killed, Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, told The Cipher Brief. The attackers in these cases were either U.S.-born citizens, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Kuwait, or individuals from Pakistan, Russia and Egypt — countries not included under this order.
“How many of those lives would have been saved had exactly the same directive [as Trump signed] been put into effect after 9/11 and applied for the entire 15-year period? The answer is zero,” Jenkins said.
If 9/11 is included in the tally, Jenkins noted that none of the 19 attackers were from the countries named in Trump’s order — and 15 were from Saudi Arabia.
There is one country Keane said he did have concerns with being a part of the executive order: Iraq.
“The reason for that is they are our ally, we have shed American blood in Iraq fighting side by side with the Iraqis against radical Islamists, and we’re fighting there right now as we speak,” Keane said. “It’s also a known fact that Iraqi military come to this country to receive training — pilots, as an example — and I’m concerned that a travel ban on Iraq increases the Iranian influence in Iraq. And we should not be doing anything that increases the Iranian influence in Iraq.”
“I’m assuming the administration thought through that, but it is problematic and it does give the Iranians a card to play with the Iraqi people and the government in suggesting that the United States doesn’t really trust you in the way we trust you,” he added.
Pentagon spokesperson Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said on Monday the Defense Department is compiling a list of Iraqi citizens who have assisted the U.S. military. “We are ensuring that those who have demonstrated their commitment tangibly to fight alongside us and support us, that those names are known in whatever process there is going forward,” he said.
James Jeffrey, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, noted that the order is “having a terrible effect in Iraq as it has been put in same category as five failed states and Iran.”
“Iraq is crucial to defeat ISIS and contain Iran. Had the thing been ‘sold’ better with input from bureaucracy and without the surprise ‘gotcha’ drama at airports, the White House could have pleased its base without the uproar,” Jeffrey wrote in an email. “Muslim populations of the Middle East generally have a low opinion of the U.S. so this won't do much additional damage. Other than Iraq, all our friends from Pakistan to Morocco [were] spared so they will be fine. The tradecraft of this is the most troubling.”
On Keeping America Safe
Overall, according to Keane, “the president has had a good week. He’s followed through on things he said he was going to do. And number one is the safety and security of the American people.”
“This president is dead set on that. He looks at the Boston Marathon, San Bernardino and Florida as horrific events, as anyone would, and he does not want those to happen while he’s president,” Keane said. “They’re all radical Islamists who killed their fellow citizens, motivated and inspired by radical Islamist ideology. It’s just a matter of time that we’ll have someone who has infiltrated, just as they have in Europe. What are we going to do, wait until we have somebody who has infiltrated and was a refugee or immigrant coming from one of the high threat areas and then close the door? I don’t think so.”
Meanwhile, Greenert pointed out that “when one wonders or opines that the U.S. is safe or safer, a question is, how are you measuring safe?”
“And if we know that metric, then one can attempt to answer that. If you say ‘safe means nothing bad happens,’ well, that’s likely an impossible metric,” he said. “If you elect or appoint a person and say it’s their job — and they are solely accountable — to keep us safe, then we should allow and enable them to do that job. If unsuccessful, do not reelect, or replace if appointed."
The current system does not work perfectly, McLaughlin noted as he assessed Trump’s initial actions. “But you don't improve it with ill-considered and improvisational strokes of the pen over the weekend. It's not a reality show anymore. It's reality,” he said.
Mackenzie Weinger is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @mweinger.
Pam Benson contributed to this report.
