Eli Lake
When Dr. Sebastian Gorka started his job as the senior director for counterterrorism at the White House’s National Security Council, one of the first things he did was order new lanyards for his team with eight letters and an ampersand: WWFY & WWKY. These cryptic abbreviations were drawn from a quote from Gorka’s boss, President Donald Trump: “We will find you, and we will kill you.”
Gorka has fashioned that directive into a new policy that streamlines the process for the CIA and U.S. military to find, fix, and finish terrorists all over the Islamic world. The old protocols held that the president or national security adviser had to sign off on every strike. Now the authority to approve these air strikes and drone strikes sits lower down the chain of command.
“We undid four years of the insanity of the 8,000-mile UAV joystick,” Gorka told The Free Press.
In practice, one U.S. intelligence official told The Free Press, midlevel CIA and military officers in charge of targeting teams now have the authority to approve the operations. Another senior Trump administration official told The Free Press, “There are still significant levels of checks and balances in place, and the president has confidence in his military to act within their lawful authorities.”
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