WASHINGTON – US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo haswarned that North Korea is moving “ever closer” to putting Americans atrisk and is only “a handful of months” way from being able to launch anuclear attack on the United States.
“North Korea is ever closer to being able to hold America at risk,” the CIAchief said at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaningthink tank in Washington, on Tuesday.
Pompeo said he had earlier expressed alarm about Pyongyang being “a handfulof months” away from the ability to endanger the US with a nuclear attack.
“I said the same thing several months before that,” he said, adding that “Iwant everybody to understand that we are working diligently to make surethat a year from now I can still tell you they are several months away fromhaving that capacity.”This picture from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)taken on December 29, 2017 and released on December 30, 2017 shows NorthKorean leader Kim Jong-un (front C) attending an art performance inPyongyang. (Photo via AFP)
The CIA director also said he believed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wasintent on developing a reliable arsenal of nuclear weapons to threatenAmerica and that the measure was not just “a showpiece.”
“Kim Jong-un will not rest with a single successful test,” Pompeo said inhis speech at the American Enterprise Institute. “The logical next stepwould be to develop an arsenal of weapons that is not one, not a showpiece,not something to drive on a parade route.”
Kim seeks “the capacity to deliver from multiple firings of these missilessimultaneously,” he noted. “Our mission is to make the day that he can dothat as far off as possible.”
The CIA chief said the aim of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missilesprogram was more than just deterrence against Washington and that Pyongyangwould use nuclear weapons for the ultimate goal of reunifying the KoreanPeninsula under Kim’s control.
Pompeo also accused the previous US administration of not concentratingsufficient resources on Pyongyang and its nuclear weapons program.
Last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson threatened North Korea witha military response unless it abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
North Korea has been under a raft of harsh UN sanctions since 2006 over itsnuclear tests as well as multiple rocket and missile launches. Pyongyanghas firmly defended its military program as a deterrent against the hostilepolicies of the US and its regional allies, including South Korea and Japan.
On November 29, North Korea said it had successfully tested a new missilethat put the US mainland within range of its nuclear weapons. It alsodeclared itself a “nuclear state.”
The North Korean leader also used his televised New Year’s Day speechlink>towarn Washington that the entire United States was within range ofPyongyan’s nuclear weapons and a nuclear button was always on his desk.