CIA chief says 'nothing imminent' in US showdown with North Korea

Mike Pompeo, the CIA director, offered assurances on Sunday “nothing imminent” was happening in the US standoff with nuclear-armed North Korea but said he wouldn’t be surprised if Pyongyang conducted another missile test.

Pompeo’s remarks cap a week in which Donald Trump vowed “fire and fury” if North Korea continued to threaten the US with nuclear weapons, and Pyongyang countered by announcing plans to test-launch missiles toward Guam.

Asked how worried people should be, Pompeo told Fox News Sunday: “There’s nothing imminent today.” He added: “But make no mistake about it ... the increased chance that there will be a nuclear missile in Denver is a very serious threat.”

Pressed about his “nothing imminent” statement, Pompeo said: “What I’m talking about is, I’ve heard folks talking about that we have been on the cusp of a nuclear war. No intelligence that would indicate we are in that place today.”

Pompeo said the US intelligence community has “a pretty good idea” about what’s going on in North Korea.

He added that he was confident North Korea would continue to develop its missile capabilities under its leader Kim Jong-un. “He conducted two in July so it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s another missile test.”

Last month’s missile tests demonstrated that the nuclear-armed regime now has intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the US mainland, experts said. The Washington Post reported this week that the US Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that North Korea has developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could be put atop an ICBM.

Pompeo declined to tell Fox News Sunday how long it might be before North Korea could carry out such a nuclear attack on the US mainland. “It is probably fair to say that they are moving towards that at an ever alarming rate,” he said.

The CIA chief also appeared Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation where host John Dickerson asked about reports that North Korea’s nuclear program is moving faster than observers had believed. Pompeo pushed back: “That’s actually not true. It’s not moving faster than policymakers knew.”

Referring to the Leon Panetta, the former CIA director, and Michael Morell, who served as acting director, Pompeo noted: “It was their good work that has been tracking this all along. The intelligence community has actually had a pretty good picture.

“Can we predict days or weeks?” Pompeo added. “No, certainly not. But we have certainly had a pretty good handle on the work that’s been done to develop these system of systems.”

And Pompeo took issue with Dickerson’s suggestion that the US should pursue a policy of containment. “This regime is different,” he argued.

“I’ve heard some say, I think Susan Rice said, ‘We just need to learn to live with this.’ President Trump finds that unacceptable,” Pompeo added. “This is not a leader for whom containment is a policy that makes sense for American national security.”