President Donald Trump’s announcement of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi revealed a slew of sensitive details about the secret military operation that could imperil future raids, special operations and intelligence, veterans fear.
Trump, who spoke for a full 48 minutes and took a series of questions at the White House, went into unusual detail about the mission inside hostile territory in Syria that he said he watched in real time “as though you were watching a movie.”
Among the most striking were his descriptions of how the Army Delta Force was inserted into the heavily fortified compound, breached its walls to avoid booby-trapped doors and pursued the terrorist kingpin into a network of tunnels, where he detonated his suicide vest, killing himself and three children. But considered especially egregious were Trump’s remarks about the number and route of the commando’s helicopters.
“I always get a little bit nervous when people without knowledge of operations start describing operations,” said Michael Nagata, a retired Army lieutenant general who was the senior special operations commander in the Middle East during the early stages of the anti-ISIS campaign. “It’s a good story, and I can understand the impulse to tell a good story. Telling it can have positive benefits. But the benefits are unpredictable and marginal, whereas the harm could be more substantial.”
Taken together, some of the details Trump revealed could help terrorist groups piece together new information about how U.S. counterterrorism forces gather intelligence and execute such dangerous missions, said veterans of previous operations.
“I’m surprised that he went into that level of granularity,” said a former senior military officer who has commanded troops in the region and like some others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.
Nagata stressed that Trump is not alone in the practice. He cited the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, which was recounted in significant detail at the time by Obama administration officials.
“This tradition two administrations have established of talking about the details of missions like these may actually make them more dangerous and more difficult in the future,” said Nagata, who was also the senior U.S. military officer in Pakistan at the time of the Bin Laden mission.
Here are a few examples of things Trump shared on Sunday that have been raising eyebrows.
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- Discussion
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President Donald Trump’s announcement of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi revealed a slew of sensitive details about the secret military operation that some worry could imperil future raids https://t.co/ggWRLG5rvk
— POLITICO (@politico) October 27, 2019
Another good reason to get rid of that commander-in-chief designation. The less Trump knows about military operations, the better.
Was al-Baghdadi “screaming, crying and whimpering” at the end? So far the only person who has said so is Trump and he had no way to hear. Top Defense and military officials say they don’t know what he’s talking about. @helenecooper https://t.co/rH6OLFZaha
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) October 29, 2019
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