Is the US-Iran standoff exposing deep fault lines in US intelligence coordination?

As tensions over intelligence sharing and priorities flare, the CIA has stopped participating in some intelligence assessments by the office of the nation’s top spy, including those on the Iran war, according to people familiar with the subject.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have been fighting for more than a year, hindering cooperation on national security assessments that presidents long have used to guide them through complex foreign challenges, said a U.S. official and three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal concerns.

At the heart of the disagreements is a clash over a task group established in April 2025 by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, the sources said.

Two of the sources said Gabbard’s Director’s Initiatives Group had acted irresponsibly in bypassing standard intelligence-sharing and declassification norms, a charge the CIA under Director John Ratcliffe has made. ODNI officials said CIA has repeatedly denied the organisation access to intelligence.

The intelligence agency cooperation breakdown is happening at a hazardous moment for the Trump administration, with the US in the Iran conflict and facing national security issues from Chinese military growth to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

It also shows that the reform measures implemented after the September 11, 2001, attacks that formed a director of national intelligence to coordinate the 18 US intelligence agencies have not stopped the dysfunction.The ODNI is “supposed to be the oil in the system that keeps the arteries of the intelligence community flowing, that removes blockages,” said Beth Sanner, a former deputy director of national intelligence in President Donald Trump’s first term.When you don’t do that, then you create the chance that agencies are just going to sort of pull back into their stove pipes and you set yourself up for intelligence failures.

Last week, Gabbard announced she would leave her role as Trump’s top spy on June 30 due to her husband’s sickness. Trump on Tuesday named Bill Pulte, chief of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as interim director of national intelligence.

“The president and policymakers continue to get the best intelligence and analysis,” said Olivia Coleman, an ODNI spokeswoman, who added that ODNI and the agencies it oversees “communicate and collaborate daily with CIA counterparts across the full spectrum of intelligence products and operations.”

“The Director’s Initiatives Group operated within the oversight authorities of ODNI and in support of the president’s executive orders,” Coleman stated.

In February, Reuters reported that Gabbard had disbanded the group and relocated its staff to other parts of her department amid congressional examination of its actions.“Under Director Ratcliffe, the CIA was quick to move out on President Trump’s priorities with a more aggressive agency taking smart risks to outmanoeuvre our adversaries and give the United States a decisive advantage,” CIA Director of Public Affairs Liz Lyons said.

“Trump’s peace through strength foreign policy is a proven strategy that keeps America safe and deters global threats,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said, adding that media efforts to sow divisiveness at home would not succeed.“President Trump has the utmost confidence in his entire outstanding national security team,” Ingle added.

Less collaboration on intelligence assignments

One of the most serious effects of the organisations’ mutual distrust is the CIA’s move to cut back drastically on its inputs into assessments prepared by Gabbard’s office.

The CIA has been one of the key contributors to the reports published by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the leading US intelligence analytical body. The reports matter, especially in a combat situation.

The agency no longer routinely engages in assessments about Iran, where the U.S. military has been fighting since February, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The CIA and ODNI now function largely as two different analytical enterprises, the sources added.

At one point last year, the CIA halted releasing NIC findings on the internal intelligence community distribution programme it controls, the sources said, briefly limiting the accessibility of the analytical products in reaction to friction between the two agencies.

The findings were held back for just “a few hours” due to a “processing issue” a US official said.

The inter-agency conflict began shortly after Gabbard took her role in February 2025, the four people said.

One of her initial moves was to place stricter control over creation of the Presidential Daily Brief, insiders added. The CIA had long been the principal agency in creating the brief, a highly confidential daily compendium of intelligence reports prepared for the president.

“The relationship got even more sour with the formation of the Director’s Initiatives Group to “root out” alleged politicisation of the intelligence community, the sources said.

The group also worked to declassify records about the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, and investigated the security of election voting machines and the origins of COVID-19.

Some critics, including former intelligence officers, have accused the group of being created as a weapon to get revenge on Trump’s perceived political enemies.

“At many occasions, task force members pressed the CIA for intelligence and resources needed to finish ODNI-assigned probes but felt they did not get enough, two people familiar with the situation said.

CIA officers dismissed

In May 2025 Gabbard fired two senior CIA operatives who ran the NIC.

The ODNI ousted the two “because they created a toxic work environment, as documented in a workforce survey, and because they had a history of politicising intelligence,” said an intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal government matters.

The official did not offer any evidence for the accusations.

Then in August, Gabbard withdrew 37 current and former officials of their security clearances, inadvertently exposing the identity of an undercover CIA officer overseas.

Gabbard accused the 37 of leaking and politicising intelligence, but provided no evidence.

“The move was in part retaliation for a 2017 intelligence assessment that Russia had waged an extensive influence operation to swing the 2016 presidential vote to Trump, former officials and others said.

The CIA-ODNI tensions burst into the open last month when a CIA official assigned to the Director’s Initiatives Group told a Senate hearing the agency had barred the group’s access to intelligence on the origins of COVID-19.

That argument has led to an investigation by the intelligence community inspector general’s office, an independent watchdog at ODNI, according to two people familiar with the matter.People familiar with the situation say the CIA has ceased participation in several intelligence assessments, including those on the Iran conflict, generated by the office of the nation’s top spy amid disputes over intelligence-sharing and areas of responsibility.