It’s worth noting that the Trump White House has not condemned the Washington Post story as a leak. That’s probably because it was an authorized disclosure of classified information to advance President Trump’s North Korea strategy. That is, instead of concealing intelligence to avoid taking action against the tough North Korea problem like the Obama administration did, the Trump administration publicized this same intelligence to demonstrate the seriousness of this threat and why decisive action by the United States is required.
I believe Trump officials timed the release of the North Korea missile warhead information to bolster their efforts to pressure China to abide by new sanctions imposed on North Korea last weekend by the UN Security Council. If so, this is a good strategy to highlight to Beijing the urgency that it abide by these sanctions and also implement other kinds of diplomatic and economic pressure against North Korea that it has so far refused to employ. As I wrote in an August 7 Fox News Opinion article, this may be China’s last chance to prevent a military conflict with North Korea.
Americans need to recognize as they ponder the increasingly dangerous North Korea situation that the Obama administration not only refused to do anything about this crisis but tried to downplay and conceal intelligence from the American people and Congress on how serious it was.