US lacks 'strategic intelligence prowess' as critical ally deals 'significant' blow: expert

Maritime leaders from the “Five Eyes” alliance. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jesse Marquez Magallanes/Released).

A retired U.S. general tells CNN that U.S. intelligence lost a valuable ally when British leaders stopped sharing information on Caribbean ships due to potential international law violations.

Legal experts are blasting President Donald Trump's policy of bombing purported drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean as an illegal act of extrajudicial murder, and now a top US ally is joining the chorus.

CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton described the growing heat between the U.S. andVenezuela as “very critical,” with U.S. battleships moving into waters around Venezuela and the defense minister of Venezuela threatening “either a guerrilla warfare situation on or an anarchy situation where … they would [launch] a guerilla campaign against the U.S. … if U.S. forces actually set foot on Venezuelan soil.”

Leighton went on to say both nations were obviously “posturing themselves for war,” in a way similar to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and that it was “very hard to pull back” from that.

In the meantime, however, Leighton told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer that Britain deciding to cease cooperating with the U.S. on intelligence was a huge blow to U.S. intelligence.

“It's significant because the way the British have set up their intelligence services, they really look at the long term,” said Leighton. “They have experts that focus on a target area for 20, 30 years. We are much more tactical in our approach to intelligence. We're very good at what we do, but we don't understand the nuances of things like language and things like the way the forces are deployed and all the political aspects of that, as well as the as the British.”

“We do have experts on Latin America, who have studied the region for years, but it's a very different style of intelligence and a very different style of intelligence dissemination between the two countries,” Leighton added. “The Brits complement us quite a bit in the way they conduct their intelligence operations and we complement them because of our tactical intelligence prowess. They complement us because of their strategic intelligence prowess.”

Other analysts pointed out to CNN that the U.K. is one of a small group of close intelligence sharing partners known as the “five eyes,” and that it should be interesting to see how other nations like Canada, alters its position, along with New Zealand, Australia, and other “Five Eyes” members.

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