The Wire - February 15, 2024

//The Wire//1800Z February 15, 2024////ROUTINE////BLUF: HOUSE INTEL COMMITTEE CLAIMS SERIOUS SECURITY THREAT.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Middle East: Growing international opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza has begun to become more public over the past few days. French President Macron urged PM Netanyahu in a phone call to end the war in Gaza, citing the overwhelming civilian casualties caused by the conflict. This follows increased personality tensions that have strained the relationship between the White House and PM Netanyahu over the past few weeks.-HomeFront-MO: Yesterday a shooting at the Superbowl parade in Kansas City left 1 dead and 21 wounded. AC: Though details are minimal, initial reporting suggests this incident may have been a gang-related shooting between multiple suspects, with the large casualty count being related to the shooting taking place within the parade crowd itself. However, as the suspects (or rather, the three black males that were arrested at the scene) have not yet been officially identified, many details remain unconfirmed.Washington D.C. – Yesterday the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee released a statement indicating that all members of Congress had been briefed on a serious national security threat, and that the President has been urged to declassify documentation regarding this unknown threat.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: Unofficially, the story has been leaked to the press as being related to Russia’s ambitions to obtain undisclosed space-based strategic weapons. All details beyond this (and probably including this) are extremely unconfirmed. Currently, almost all diplomacy seems to be conducted via leaks; we rarely see a press statement from any government entity confirming anything, as leaks to the press offer the executive branch the chance of plausible deniability. All policy decisions by the Biden regime are usually leaked to the press first, to test the waters with the general public. As such, since there are no official details to work with, grand dissertations are being written by various pundits in response to what is, as of yet, a rumor.Regarding the declassification of documents, the Office of the President is not the only entity that can declassify sensitive information. The Original Classification Authority (i.e. the organization that classified the information in the first place) can also declassify intelligence reporting. There are also other varying means of classifying intelligence reports to lower levels, by omitting sources and methods. This is quite easy, and routinely done in all joint or coalition environments. However, there is a reason as to why the emergency declassification of intelligence reports is rarely done (even though there are many procedures for it): If the threat is real, military force is used to defend against it, full stop.The mere effort of declassifying something is a strong indicator that a citizenry would NOT approve of preemptive strikes, and would NOT see Russia’s actions as a direct threat…and therefore need to be convinced of the necessity of military action. This alone is a strong indicator that this alleged threat is not a real characterization of an imminent threat. Also considering that the United States military freely allows multiple airspace violations over US soil, with zero repercussions (not even sanctions or the slightest diplomatic complaint), it’s overwhelmingly likely that this “threat” is not direct or imminent in any way, but rather a strategic threat that is more abstract.Analyst: S2A1//END REPORT//