House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said Sunday the United States is helping Israel’s intelligence community track down Hamas leaders but is being selective about what information is shared with its closest ally in the Middle East.
“Certainly the United States is assisting in the location of Hamas leadership as Israel moves to eliminate the threat of Hamas,” Turner said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” adding that, still, “I can tell you that we are being selective as to the information that’s being provided.”
“It’s one thing to be able to look to try to identify a specific individual and provide information as to their location and operations, and actually directing an operation,” Turner said. “I mean, [CIA Director William Burns] has been very clear that we are not just providing direct access to our intelligence. And that certainly gives us the ability to have caution.”
Turner noted that the United States, however, has worked to assist Israeli intelligence and that it has been “amazing” to see the gaps in its intelligence that preceded the massacre on Oct. 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel’s southern border, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 240 hostages.
“Well, I think what you saw was just a general dismissal by Israel and Israel’s intelligence community of the possibility of this level of a threat, which really goes to the complete breakdown that occurred here,” Turner said about Oct. 7.
“It’s been amazing to have our intelligence community now working closely with the Israeli intelligence community and see the gaps that they have. And this obviously could have been an institutional bias that resulted in them dismissing it, but the other aspect that made this so dangerous, is that even when the October 7 [attack] began to unfold, their forces didn’t react. They didn’t have the deployment ability to respond, not just the intelligence ability to prevent it,” he said.
Turner praised CIA Director Burns.
“I just received a briefing from CIA Director Burns on Friday, who just came back from the Middle East. He’s been working diligently. He’s doing a great job on negotiating for the release of hostages and also in trying to make certain that our intelligence apparatus is working closely with Israel to try to fill some of those gaps that they clearly have.”