The director is a soldier, lawyer, entrepreneur, congressman, it is doing great work at the cia and is doing great work with the cia. I think what we want today is talk about not just the issues of today that are in the newspaper, but some of the trends and issues you have to deal with as the director of the cia in the Intelligence Community. We often get captured by the immediate, and you obviously have to not only deal with that but deal with how we are thinking about our National Security five, 10, 15, 20 years out, so i want to make sure we talk about some of those issues. Theres no question there is a sense of dislocation in the world, a sense the map is shifting in some ways, that power itself is shifting, including with the role of nonstate actors. Major issues before north korea, with major policy shift the fall of the putative capital of isis, Chinas Communist Party event happening as we speak. Lets get into it. Mr. Director, First Talking about iran, the president gave his speech on october 13 reshaping u. S. Policy on iran. I think the first question on this is why was that speech and that shift necessary, and is iran in violation of the jcp oa, or what is the animating principle behind this shift . Director pompeo ask for the question, but let me also thank the ftd ftd for hosting this and clifford for inviting me. We often focus a lot on the jcp share them happy to intelligence elements that are buried there, but the president has come to view the threat from iran as at the center of so much that bogs us down in lots of places in the middle east. The threats presented to lebanon and israel, the shia militias, you can see the impact a are having today, even in northern iraq, the threat they pose to u. S. Forces. We had an incident last week. The list of iranian transgressions, their missile program, cyber efforts, the list of transgressions is long, and from an intelligence perspective, we share that with the president. I think he concluded that we needed to reconfigure our relationships, not only with iran, but with the gulf states and israel to make sure we are addressing what he views as the real threat to the United States in a comprehensive way. There has been a lot of focus on the deal and if theres certification under the u. S. Law that required the president to certify every 90 days. Whats your sense of where we are headed with the deal . There has been so much focus, especially from european allies, on the centrality of the jcp oa in the context with the relationship with iran. The president seems to be shifting that in the policy, and i think the administration seems to be pushing not just on the deal but around the deal. How do you explain to people the jcpoa itself and the role it plays and policy . Director pompeo i do not do policy in the same way today. General mcmaster, you can give him all the time you want, but i will say this the mission set that the president laid out respect to the deal was to ensure that there were no pathways for the iranians to achieve a Nuclear Capability, to in the a president future in the same place this president is with respect to north korea, to close down all the avenues, so there are many pieces to that from an intelligence perspective. We need even more intrusive intrusivee more inspection. Iranians have on multiple occasions been capable of presenting a continued threat through covert efforts to develop their Nuclear Program along multiple dimensions. The missile dimension, the weaponization effort, the Nuclear Component health, but we need to make sure from an intelligence perspective a are unable to do that, and the president has given us resources to go achieve that and all the various tools to do that. Stared at thedent deal and asked us what this meant from a proliferation perspective inside of iran, two years, three years, a difference of a breakout time across a it did notmonths, seem satisfactory to him. Thats no surprise. He tweeted about it. It did not seen satisfactory to him, so he asked us how we might present a more copperheads of effort to push back against the quds force, the irgc more broadly a more comprehensive effort to push back. I will stay on the analytic side the notion that the entry into the jcpoa would curtail iranian adventurism or their Terror Threat or malignant behavior has now two years on proven to be fundamentally false. Has the opposite happened . Have they gotten more aggressive than you would anticipate . Depends on which dimension. They have been developing their Missile System pretty extensively for an extensive , but their desire to put guided rocketry in the hands of hezbollah, the efforts in yemen attempting to launch thesees to the emirates, are new and aggressive and show no signs of having been curtailed by even the increased commerce that they have achieved through having europeans back in the game and iran. Not new that they have been engaged in this adventurous sort of activity and dangerous activity from a u. S. Perspective. When we talk about pushing back, what does that mean from your perspective. Head of the the igc, the revolutionary guard corps showing up in all of the wrong places at all of the wrong u. S. Perspective. He was just inch or cook in the middle of this conflict. Aware ofpompeo im that. Figured you would. [laughter] pushed back . They seemed to be pushing on all of the pressure points. What does that mean for us to be able to confront and pushback . Director pompeo all the tools available of u. S. Power. I will begin with a handful. We could talk about this for a long time, but i will begin with a handful. It has been far too inexpensive or the iranians to conduct this adventurism. We should raise the cost as a critical component of the role. The second piece is we need all of our partners. Sometimes i hear folks talk about the jcp and our partners and neri a mention of the , but talking about germans and brits and french. They are important partners, too. We need them all working against the continued expansion. The treasury, too, has an important role. You live this in your role at the treasury. Secretary mnuchin is keenly aware of the tools in his arsenal as well. Think about this today. The iranians have complained a great deal that they have not seen the economic benefits they had apected, but imagine you are european ceo or board of directors or a lender. The Intelligence Community struggles mightily to figure out which companies are controlled by the irgc or the quds force. It is a difficult, complex intelligence undertaking to short to sort out which entities are controlled by the quds force, which have shareholders. It is intentionally opaque, but as much as 20 of the iranian economy is controlled by them. Imagine you are a business person deciding if it was appropriate to take the risk or not, if the return was there for your company. I think we could make it even more difficult, and i think in order to push back against all of these nonnuclear activities, put aside the Nuclear Issues and the deal to push back against these nonnuclear activities is something the president is intent on doing. Let me ask you just a couple more questions. I think the iran policy, the tooa debate are windows other trends and factors. How have our allies or even adversaries reacted to that speech and the policy shift . Publicly. Hat you hear is there a different line privately . Lot cannot share a whole other than to say there is consensus of the iranian threat. Again, just to push aside for just a second the nuclear threat, not to diminish that perhaps is the paramount objective, to keep them on achieving a Nuclear Capability to launch weapons, but putting that aside, there is enormous global consensus to push back against the iranians, and i have certainly heard that in private conversations with my intelligence counterparts, them desiring to work alongside us to build out the intelligence picture such that we can deliver to all of our policy makers the best information in the right places, the levers so that they can decide which ones they want to pull in order to achieve the policy objectives that each of our countries have. I have not heard a single one of them deny the core of what President Trump said in his speech friday, which is that iranian behaviorist threatening not only the United States, but the west writ large as well. Want to segue to a couple of other issues feeding off of the speech because it highlighted two things that i think went largely unnoticed. One was the discussion of iranian support to terrorism. Of course, we know the typical sort of argument around that and the data we have hezbollah, iraq. Proxies in the president mention al qaeda and the taliban as well. I thought that was interesting in part because we have known all along that there have been links between the two. The Treasury Department has designated al qaeda actors to have been in iran and supported. The 9 11 commission raised a question that was unanswered with respect to irans potential role in 9 11, and the president actually raised it quite openly, which i found to be really startling and interesting. Can you talk about that . The iranian al qaeda links that the president mentioned . Director pompeo i cannot say a whole lot more than he said, but i think it is an open secret and not classified information that there have been relationships. There are connections. There have been times the iranians have worked alongside al qaeda. The state is going to release in the next handful of days related to a rate who that may prove interesting to those who wish to take a look at the issue a little further, but there have been connections were at the very least they have cut deals so as not to come after each other. As ais a view in the west greater threat. The Intelligence Community has reported on this for an awfully long time. It is something we are very mindful of, and with the defeat of the real state proposition in syria anorak for isis, we watch what is going on where you have isis folks, al qaeda folks up in the north. We are watching to see if there are not places where they Work Together for a Common Threat against united dates. States. D lets take that thread because it goes to this issue of the diminishment of territory that isis controls, but it also raises the question of the scramble for territory and what american interests and even presents presence looks like as isis is hopefully more quickly defeated. What is your sense of where american presence and influence goes in syria and iraq now that isis seems to be on its way out, least less in control of territory, better said . Director pompeo i would prefer to leave the policy piece of that to others in terms of how the president will think of that, but we have one stated policy from the president that is very clear with respect to south asia and the threat that not only the taliban presents there, but a network of al qaeda and isis in afghanistan. The president has made an unconditioned commitment, that is no timeline commitment, to defeating the threat to the west from radical islamic terrorism. Im confident the Intelligence Community will continue to deliver an understanding to the president such that he can shape the policies he will follow in syria to push that not only against iran but the Syrian Regime to ensure that the government anorak is successful as well. Perch, the directors what is the ideal scenario from your perspective in terms of and ability to operate in these places . Do you need more of a physical footprint longerterm . Obviously, afghanistan gives you that with troop deployments without a timeline, but what does that look like in the iraq and syrian context . Especially when we are not committed to nationbuilding, obviously . That is the president s stated policy, so what does that look like from an intel chief toss perspective . Director pompeo we obviously benefit when theres a larger u. S. Footprint in the places we are trying to collect intelligence, no doubt about that, but there are a bunch of places where we operate even as we sit here this morning in the confines of a nicely airconditioned hotel that we have folks out in harms way, untethered from a whole lot of health from american support doing really good work to get information. Our intelligence Collection Mission will not change if theres a big u. S. Footprint, a small u. S. Footprint, or no u. S. Footprint. We will just have to figure out a way to achieve that, regardless of what the u. S. Proxy is in any of those places. You mentioned the afghanistan policy. Secretary tillerson went to india to give a speech yesterday to talk about the importance of that partnership. The chairman of the joint chiefs a few weeks ago talked about pakistan and some of the difficulties we have had,. Bviously, with the pakistanis and part, the intelligence ofvices ties relationships terrorist actors that have been dangerous for u. S. Troops and s. Terest thinking about that part of the world and the role you play, steady stateight for a relationship with pakistan at a time when we have obviously doubled down in afghanistan, are committing to india, but seem to be confronting pakistan a bit more soberly these days . Think history would indicate that High Expectations for the pakistanis willingness to help us in a fight against radical islamic terrorism should be set at a low level. A very we should have real conversation with them about what it is they are doing and what it is they could do and the american expectations for how they will behave, but they are an important country sitting in an important place. Secretary tillerson haase statement i think is right about our desire to have a constructive relationship with the pakistanis, but equally, the president has made very clear we will do everything we can to bring the taliban to the negotiating table in afghanistan with the taliban having zero hope that they can win this thing on the battlefield. To do that, you cannot have a. Afe haven in pakistan the intelligence is very clear to achieve the objective that the president has set forth in afghanistan, the capacity for terrorists to cross along the border and freely hide in pakistan is prohibited and our capacity to do that, so our mission is to ensure that that safe haven does not exist, and i hope we can count on the pakistanis for help in achieving that. We had a great outcome last week 4en we were able to get back u. S. Citizens who have been held for five years inside pakistan. Thats great news. And i whats the right descriptor . I am hopeful that our relations to them will deliver to us the things america has as our vital interests in that region. Want to go back to iran. Not to talk about iran, per se, but open a window into north korea. Another interesting thing the president mentioned, again, largely unremarked, was the ,oncern about potential links not just our missile program, but other links between iran and north korea. In the speech, he said he was going to ask the Intelligence Community to look into this and report back to him. What are your concerns about the links between iran and north korea and the issue of proliferation writ large . There is a long history of proliferation ties between north korea and iran. Sometimes you try to make it harder for people. A longr pompeo theres history there. There are deep conventional weapons ties between the countries. Nationstates that do not have deep export control provisions within their own countries, so it is a wild, wild west exercise, and we do have an obligation to ensure that we account for that as an Intelligence Community and then do our best efforts to ensure that we do not have capabilities transitioned between the two the two. N between you could imagine each of these countries would have relative capacities,ertain and there will even be dollars exchanged but rather expertise and Technology Exchange for the betterment of each of their weaponization and Nuclear Programs. The president s comments were if you say unremarked, the Intelligence Community has noted he has asked us to deliver him solid information. Are you concerned that we are in a state of greater risk, not just with respect to iran and north korea, but with respect to the Global Community of proliferation, given both lack of governance in parts of the world, concerns over who will acquire Nuclear Capabilities . 2017 . At a moment in its a good question at the top of the president s mind. He urges us all to think about these proliferation issues in every venue, not just north korea and iran, but pakistan, every place that that risk is there. Theres the intentional risk thation and the proliferation will take place with others conducting their own espionage activities. We are conscientious of both. When you stare even just at asia and watch as north korea grows ever closer to having its you canty perfected, imagine others in the region also thinking that they may well need that capability to protect themselves. Yes, we are deeply aware of the proliferation risk and working diligently, but to deny the in others for that countries and on the hard side of things, showing that we are watching as this proliferation activity, the communications begin to take down the network that would deliver that proliferation as well. You talk about the north korean capability. We have all watched the tests and read the newspapers around the quickening of their missile capabilities. We have seen the Nuclear Capabilities, which seem to be bigger and potentially more dangerous, and we have obviously heard their bellicose threats. Markers the remaining for their capabilities . An icbmmply reentry of capability . Is it the miniaturization of the Nuclear Device . Are we perilously close to them ofing perfected all elements an ability to hit the u. S. With a Nuclear Capability . They are closer n