Transcripts For CSPAN CIA Director Mike Pompeo 20180124

To me, it was capturing the sentiment that drove an electric to deliver one of the most astonishing electoral defeats i think we have seen, certainly in my lifetime, and certainly i think in modern history. Issues from terrorism to poison water inflict, michigan flint, michigan. Next, remarks by cia director mark pompeo on a National Security threats. Yes a pop to about the president. Enterprisesrican institute, this is about one hour. Hour. Good morning everybody. I am the Senior Vice President for foreign and defense policy studies at aei, and it is an honor for us to welcome the director of the Central Intelligence agency, mike pompeo, who i think for the first time is in his current role. I am going to read your bio. This is something i dont always do. Those of you who know me know that i tend to sort of race through. I have sat down and look through the directors bio and i was enormously impressed. So i am going to read it and embarrass you. Sworn in as the director of the cia in january of 2017, mr. Pompeo was a congressman on the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence and the committee on energy and commerce prior to that. He served on the benghazi committee, but he wasnt in inbefore that, he was business for himself, he was the head of his own company and was a graduate, number one in his class and along the iron curtain, when we had an hiring, although iron curtain , we are on our way back. He graduated from harvard law school. That is pretty impressive. An honor to have you serving in our government, and delighted to see it. Normally, i would give you a rundown of what he is going to say, but i have absolutely no idea. No leaks from the cia of what happens. The director is going to come up here and speak for a while and then sit down with aeis own with a conversation and then questions from the audience. Without further ado, mr. Director. [applause] pompeo good morning everyone. Today is exactly one year, and in a few hours it will be one year to the minute as i was sworn in as director of the cia. I got held up across the weekend. Danielle, thanks for the kind introduction and for having me here. I will spend a few moments talking about that your. That year from the Central Intelligence agencys perspective. It has been a different role than i had, although i served in the House Oversight committee, so i had a chance to see the cia as a member of congress. I have told my friends were on theare still committee, it is not possible to gain a full perspective of what the u. S. Intelligence services collectively can do until someone gets the privilege that i have to lead one of those organizations. Nothing can possibly prepare you for this scale, the magnitude of the efforts that we undertake agenda every day as the nations first line of defense. I go back to the president s inaugural speech being the hour for the american action. At the cia, i have tried to live that and have my team live that. We are doers and cia. At the cia. We try to stay on the right side of decorum, which is to get stuff done. I think the American People have the capacity to see that each and every day, and they cant for good reason. They too would be as proud of the men and women who joined the cia as i am. I came to quickly understand that i wasnt going to improve the courage of our officers, the skill set of our officers, although we are working diligently to take it to even the next level. Having led to Small Businesses two Small Businesses and having been a leader of the military, i could see that there was a bureaucracy that was preventing them from being unleashed from doing the very things they were directed, commanded, and american needed them to do. I wanted to be a part of changing that understanding, i want to make sure our officers appreciated the fact that we were going to have a next dictation nearly every day. That we are going to steal secrets, it is what espionage services do. We ask that they risk their lives to steal secrets to protect america. We will never shy away from it. And we do so aggressively and without any apology. We had to start to implement it. We have tried to do that, one of the things that we have done, you all have seen this in every organization you have been a part of. It is true in government, but was true in the private sector as well. Bureaucracy slows stuff down. Government is worse than the private sector because services are misaligned. I lead by example. 40 of the decisions previously made by the director of the cia are no longer made by me. You might say, wow, that is reckless. I would tell you it was reckless to do it the other way. We make careful decisions of what pieces to keep if it had has significant risk. If the director brought special knowledge to bear, if i had an experience, if it needed full input from all Intelligence Community or the broader u. S. Government, then i would keep that decision. But if it was coming to me just because i was the next fellow on the chain of command then that , is a mistake, because i would inevitably slow it down and not be in a position to be of any value in that decisionmaking process. I spent a minute talking about that, my role, i try to impart that same thing everywhere in our organization. I have asked every leaders to empower the people that work for them, and i encourage the people that work for them to go grab the authority. If we do that, will be as fast as our adversaries. I was sitting in a long meeting with senior officials and i was asked, if we did x, what our what would our adversaries do . I said sure as fact they wouldnt have a meeting like this. A little laughter. Everyone knew i was right as well. We need to have a bias towards being as nimble as our dont, wes, if we would serve america poorly. Our president and see her our policymakers need and most challenging times. Here is another good example. Circumstances on the ground to close down one of our operations station. The team came and said, heres what i think we are going to lose, we found unacceptable, and they gave the commanders intent. We are going to move out of that station, set the date, and we are not going to lose a thing. Go figure out a way to do it, and remarkably, months later, i can tell you that our intelligence equals to where it was. We did remarkable things, incredible things that absolutely had real risk and continue to. But it is in a place and subject about an adversary that we simply couldnt afford to have a gap any larger than the one we had before that facility went away. I remember, when assad used chemical weapons against his own people. The president called me personally and asked mike, i want to know what is happening there. It took a number of hours before we could deliver the president a real response that could answer the key questions. It was clear from when i heard what i heard from the president that he wanted to take action in response to the chemical attack, but he wanted to know if it was the regime, wanted to know if it was chemical weapons that were in fact used. Those sound easy. Everyone can see the open source material, but for a president to act, you need more than that. We put together a team that amounted in the hundreds that worked every intelligence channel. We were just in short order, able to deliver the president the basic facts that he needed to know if the certainties i can stand in front of them and commit that would find that we were not wrong and acted in error, and we delivered it in a way that was the finest of what this agency does. If i can leave one thing behind as director, maybe next year i can stand here and tell you we made even more progress. It would be to be as child and as speedy as we need to. The second thing is to make sure that we continue to keep the American Peoples trust. It is an law, and as i was reading in preparation for my confirmation hearing, he to it continued to strike me how much power and authority are granted to the director of the Central Intelligence agency, and through that, to our remarkable officers. We have an obligation to do everything we can to operate in a way that engenders the American Peoples trust, so those powers and authorities remain in place. If we dont, if we behave in ways that are lawless, and which you see in movies, then American People would rightfully take those powers, that authority, that capacity away from us. That would be unforgivable for our eight to find itself in that place. What we do is simply too important. I see it with whatever target we are working. Whether it is efforts to help the president understands what is going on in north korea, whether it is our efforts throughout the world, work were doing against russia those authorities, the trust American People have provided to us are central to us in achieving our mission. Days like today, which are far few and far between where i come out and speak publicly it , is important for the American People to understand that we operate inside a democracy, that we respect the rule of law deeply, that we have processes in place to ensure that we continue to do that, and that we are working diligently to make sure that the people entrusted with ensuring that is happening our oversight committees and executive branch of which we work, are fully informed of the things we are doing. Everyone in the organization would know that is my and we are doing that in a way that the American People are proud of. There are a handful of stories i may wait for mark to come up here, and i will tell a couple of them. You should know that we are focused on the same set of priorities that if you ask the state,nt or secretary of would be very closely aligned. Last year, it was remarkable to see the creativity, which has led to our capacity to materially impact shipments into north korea. We are not quite where we need to be. Our mission is not complete, but we have officers around the world working diligently to ensure we are doing everything we can to support the u. S. Pressure campaign and to tighten sanctions in such a way we have the opportunity to prevail and achieve the american president s mission, which is the denuclearization of the peninsula. This is the kind of task was that the cia designed for. It is the kind of task we are delivering against. I talked last week about the fact that north korea is ever closer to being able to hold america at risk. I said there was a handful of months. I said the same thing several months before that. I want everyone to understand that we are working diligently to ensure that a year from now, i can still tell you that they are several months away from having a capacity. It is not a static time frame. There is much effort all across the u. S. Government to ensure that americans dont have to feel at risk. We saw what happened in hawaii, it is imperative that we as an Intelligence Agency deliver the information to our Senior Leaders, such an away that works for the American People. I will pause here and take questions from mark and others. As we move into 2018, i want you all to know that we will continue to do remarkable things on behalf of the American People. Where not just focused on north korea and iran, we are working diligently to solve problems in venezuela and problems in africa. Our mission set is broad. The counterterrorism fight, which have not yet mission mentioned, continues. Making sure policymakers understand the threat and how best to attack it. Frankly, i have to tell you, i came in looking at these albums, problems and realized that , frankly, we have been whistling past the graveyard for decades on some of these. You should know that when i say decades, that is republican president s, democrat president s, republican congresses of which i was a member, and democrats who were members of our legislative branch as well. Some of these need be taken off the table, we need to reduce this risk, and the cia is prepared to do its part to ensure those risks are reduced. And that we ultimately can stare at these problems with fewer resources consumed because we have actually resolved many of them. Mark, i look forward to our conversation, and thank you all for being here today. [applause] thank you for being here today. You have been a longtime friend of the organization and where proud to have you here today. Pompeo i see people i havent seen for a long time. We have seen a lot of people without firsthand knowledge commenting and writing books about the president s briefing practices. You brief the president almost every day as part of the president ial daily brief. I would like you, as someone with that firsthand knowledge , take us inside the president s daily brief how does it work, what kind of a consumer of intelligence is he . So, nearly every day, i get up, read the material early in the morning, and then trundled down down to the white house. Withesent the president the best any policymaker the privilege that we have the chance to read. That is the missionary day for the analyst that prepares the book. It is quality material. I am there, jim mcmaster is there, director coats is there, i have an officer there as well. The Vice President if he is in town, that is the gang. Someone shouts, pompeo you are in, and then i take a deep breath, and then i deliver to him. We will try each day we tried to do something and talk about things that happened overnight, for instance today, you can imagine we talked about the turks moving south out of syria. And we will try also to talk about something that is coming up. For instance, preparing the president for his trip to davos, or a foreign leader who is going coming to visit. Providing him with material we know he is going to confront in the days and weeks ahead. And then, we create some space as well. Some space to do knowledge building for the team. Strategic items, things that would not be confronted or would not be in the news tonight, but things that are central to having a shared factbased understanding across all of the agency. There are three types of information the president asks hard questions, he is deeply engaged. Well have a rambunctious back and forth, all aimed at making sure we are delivering the truth as best as we understand it. Differently dont have the answer to we werent as complete as we need to be, will go back and within a couple of hours deliver that information as best we can. It is a process, the process that we go through with the president every day is the process that i hope every policymaker is doing throughout the administration. I hope they are all consuming the information that we are delivering. We spent a lot of money on it, and the same way the president does. We talked earlier about things that are obsolete, things that have been discussed is there an example of times where the president has pushed back on you and pushed you to get more information than you been able to change the outcome of something . I know this is sensitive pompeo i will give you a couple of examples. The president was concerned about humanitarian issues in yemen. The risk of cholera and starvation that was taking place. He kept pushing us about what was really taking place, was the layout, was happening in the port, was possible in the configuration of forces on the ground. He pushed us, until we were able to deliver to him a satisfactory picture where he then could make a decision of which of our friends to call to make sure that problem was at least diminished or mitigated. The second example that i remember was a little bit before that. It was on venezuela. The president was dissatisfied with the description of the situation as we had laid out to him. We kept coming back. It was some Financial Issues he wanted more clarity on. There were multiple pieces, the array of forces, he wanted to understand how it all came together so he could have a complete picture. It wasnt long after it could have been the first or second sanctions the administration put in place that were enabled by the very intelligence that we deliver that he requested. As you know, different president s take the president ial daily brief differently. President obama did not take in person more than half the time. It seemed like President Trump was going to follow the model of president obama and not do it in person. The has obviously changed. How often does he take the president ial daily brief and what are his briefing habits . Pompeo it is not daily, but it is nearly daily. Have a today, it happened yesterday. It will happen it most days. It is scheduled for about half an hour, and often goes on for 40 minutes or so depending on the president ss schedule. Become convinced of the need for a . Pompeo in life, we all have schedules that let us execute our job. The meetings that i take today are very different. This president s pattern of taking information is different than president obama and different than president clinton as well. I think the reason he dense it is because he finds value. We are able to convince him that the fact we are delivering impact his ability to perform capacity to perform his mission. The days we cannot deliver that is the day it starts getting pushed off. As i tell my team about what were going to substantively brief, we have to make sure that the information we are delivering meets the threshold for the president of the u. S. And is delivered in a manner which he can grasp sufficiently to actually be able to act upon, to provide real value, not just data, and that just some sort of random facts, but real data he can use to formulate policy. If we do that, im convinced we will continue and i think thats serving america well today. How do you see him as a consumer of intelligence . As a sophisticated consumer or what does your interaction with him in that setting tell you about him as a commanderinchief . I have seen 25 year intelligence professionals receive briefings. Say that he is the same kind of recipient of information as they are. You can ask me about certain places of the world and i need to get up to speed. None of us come with an encyclopedic knowledge of the world. Things move awfully fast in this world. He has the grounding for him to be able to grasp this information so he can ask sophisticated questions. We will be talking about a topic and he will talk about something i briefed him on months ago. It could be that he knew that before then. Im going to take full credit for having been the source of that knowledge, but i have seen this time and time again. It is not simply the case that in this is an exercise. It andot just using saying he is bored. Im confident our team is delivering in a way that is delivering value to the president. Is it the fact that so many people underestimate him is a value in National Security. The people that underestimate george w. Bush and all the rest that he wasnt that smart. Hes actually a very smart man. Is that a useful tool in National Security . Pompeo i dont know. Lots of us have been underestimated many times. Just keep plugging. Lets talk about your leadership at the cia. You recently said your goal is to make the cia more vicious, more aggressive, more inclined to take risks against the threat that america faces. How are you make in the cia more vicious, more aggressive and less riskaverse . Pompeo its all about incentives. All about the things awarded. Every organization ive been a part of, it is the human condition that you responded to the guidance that are laid out in an organization. It is important if you say it is a priority you better mean it. If you care about something, you will apply resources to it. In the agency, thats money, people technical skills. , other tools that we have coming and he will take those and apply them against the problem set. When you operate a constrained environment, that is you have to deprioritize Something Else as well. Almost impossible to avoid that and weve done it. We have said, here are the things that matter most to us. Reprioritize. We have reshuffled. People do not want to go to the place where they say the mission is. They say officers are very much that way until weve done that. Here are the things we are going to work to which only against work diligently against them you are the outcomes we are going to deliver for the president , for the country and we have prioritized it. I know you talked about this a little bit. I ran a company that sold equipment to the oil and gas industry before i came to congress. The last job that i had before i ran. I worked with drilling oil and natural gas. Best companies in the world, smartest engineers, most sound talented people and they drilled dry holes all the time. They didnt punish the engineer who made the choice. They got up the next morning and tried to do a little bit better to make sure the next one returned something. I want to create the culture here at the cia, too. If we are going to do it right, we are going to have failed mission. It is inevitable. Almost by definition, if you move out on the risk profile, you will increase the number of times you will have failure. We are going to do that and we are going to make sure that people are not punished for that but they are rather recognized for having been professional for having operated against the target sense in having done something incredibly audacious. And if it turns out that the coin turns up tails instead of heads, so be it. Were going to go the next day and crushed our adversary one more time. Last time you were here at aei when we have the conversation, the topic was guantanamo. You had just returned from guantanamo bay. Pompeo it feels like a long time ago. You said instead of closing guantanamo, we should be feeling it with more people. When are you going to get some New Residence . Pompeo from my perspective, this is what i can say. If were going to take out networks, we need the opportunities to engage with individuals whom have been pulled from the battlefield. We need to make sure that the time, the capacity to take on board the information these individuals may possess. And so, u. S. Government policy if we are serious about these fights, must reflect that. We have to make sure that not just the cia, the dod in all of the others who have a part in the counterterrorism fight have that opportunity. I am working diligently inside the administration to make sure we have that. How that will play out, how congress will definitely has its say. Today, we have a set of rules for interrogation purposes. We have detention purposes. Dod has the authority. That seems fine to me, but the moment i have officers saying we miss an opportunity to conduct an interview on someone who i believe had information that could save on american life, we are going to begin to move heaven and earth to make sure Something Like that is not ever does not ever happen again. We have captured very few people but our capability has been decimated by leaks and in an age of end to end encryption, which is increasing what we are getting, signals from intelligence will be less content and more following. Can we keep the country safe without content and doesnt that suggest we need to start getting human intelligence again in a way we have been . Pompeo a lot of predicates in your question. I love the general hayden. He is a dear friend. Were still doing pretty good collecting signals intelligence. Mostly our partner, not the cia but we have a role in that as well. That does not foreclose the absolute imperative that we can continue to improve our capacity to collect human intelligence. Not the least of which is the capacity to interview those folks who have been pulled from the battlefield. We should not put ourselves in a position where we are, were making decisions on the assumption that we cant detain an interview to improve americas information. The Trump Administration obviously inherited a mess in north korea. You could argue that for the last 25 years, kick the can down on north korea, and now we are out of road. This is coming to us head. How does north Korea Nuclear Missile Program jump from a dozen unsuccessful test a year to the state it is now . Is that alarming in the sense, are they getting at a build rate where they can overpower our Ballistic Missile capability and what can we do about that . Pompeo i cannot share much of the about this. Other than to say this. They have moved at a very rapid level. Theyre Testing Capacity has improved. The frequency that they have tests which are materially successful has also improved, putting them ever closer to a place where americans can be held at risk. I think thats a true statement. It is also analytically true that kim jongun will not rest with a single successful test. The logical next step would be to develop an arsenal of weapons. That is not one, not a showpiece, not something to drive on a parade route on february 8 but rather the capacity to deliver from multiple firings of these missiles simultaneously. That increases the risk to america and that is the very mission set that President Trump has directed the government if to figure out a way to make sure it never occurs. Does the cia assess that kim jongun is an irrational actor. Pompeo we do. And do you think that he believes that the Trump Administration is actually willing to use military force . The only way you can have a successful diplomatic solution is if he feels the threat. He seems to proceed these he is untouchable because of what he did to seoul, and what his conventional capability much less emerging merging nuclear capabilities. Does he believe that we pull the trigger do something to threaten him . Pompeo we are concerned he may not be receiving good information. It is not healthy thing to be bringing bad news to kim jongun. Try to get life insurance. I dare you. So we are doing, we are taking the real world actions that we think will make unmistakable to kim jongun that we are intent on denuclearization. We are counting on the fact he will see. We are confident he will. And then we will continue to have discussions about how to achieve that denuclearization. Can we live in a world where kim jongun has the capability to destroy new york or washington with the push of a button . Is that a world we are willing to go into . Pompeo thatll will be a decision for the president ultimately. He is unambiguous on his view. Is he the terrible . Terrible deterrable . Does he want it for regime preservation or does he do it because it gives them the freedom to do things that destabilize the region . Pompeo it is more than just regime preservation that were concerned he would use, we talk about the nuclear risk all the time. That gets to the brunt of the worlds attention appropriately so, but his conventional forces alone. Close to a million under arms to depending on how you count them is no small thing. And so we do believe that kim jongun, given the toolset, would use them for things besides regime protection. That that is to put pressure on what is his ultimate goal which is reunification of the peninsula under his authority. So we do not think it is the case that he will use this toolset for selfpreservation. We think he will use it in a way, call it what you will, call toolset for selfpreservation. It coercive is perhaps the best way to think about how kim jongun is prepared to potentially use these weapons. There seems to be a perception the options in north korea are nuclear war or letting, or going to a deterrent strategy. There are options in between that. If he is an rational actor and President Trump decided to do Something Like a limited strike like the one he done in syria, would a rational actor not respond the way the Syrian Regime didnt respond, right . In the sense that would lead to regime destruction. If you are a rational actor who wants to preserve your regime, are there options to address his capability. Pompeo im thrilled you ask. Im equally happy not to answer. We all understand when you cannot answer. Pompeo i will say this though. The American People should know we are working to prepare a series of options. Well make sure the president has the full suite of possibilities. The president is intent on delivering this with diplomatic means. It is the focus. It has been uniformly that for now 365 days. It remains so today. We are focused like a laser on achieving that. We are equally at the same time ensuring that if we conclude that is not possible that we present the president with a range of options that can achieve what is his stated intentions. Lets talk about iran. One of the holes in the nuclear deal is the oldschool come part compartmentalization, the assumption all the Nuclear Program work occurs within the country. To what extent could iran we know there was north korean cooperation with syria for example in building that facility that the israelis took out. To what extent could iran use cooperation to conduct Illicit Nuclear work like on warhead design that would advance the iranian, not just in north korea that could advance the program that necessarily our catching it or violating the agreement . Pompeo that is a real risk. We think we have pretty good understanding of whats taking place there today. Having said that i am the first person to admit that intelligence organizations can miss important information. These are terribly difficult problems and an incredibly tight spaces, and when youre moving information sometimes difficult to detect that information is moved. So someone asks me as the Senior Intelligence leader of the cia, can you guarantee this . I would say absolutely not. But we are working to make sure that doesnt happen. This goes back to previous question about one of the risks of allowing north koreas regime to continue to have this nuclear capability. It is this proliferation risk. It is this technology that they have developed and then figured out how to manufacture at something beyond just a museum piece. But some form of production level capacity within the proliferated elsewhere in the world. Then secondarily it doesnt take too much imagination to understand that if they continue to have that Nuclear Weapon system or the iranians make advancements in theirs, that many other the countries around the world will decide me, too. Right . That i want to have one of those things that that guy has. Being very careful not to identify countries but you can go through the list of those would feel incredibly threaten and feel that they needed to have similar capacity in order to defend their own National Security interests. Lets talk about Vladimir Putin for a second. This is a guy who shows up a lot with his shirt off, right . Theres a famous story where he told president bush that my dog is bigger and stronger. Are these behaviors of someone who is a strong leader or a weak leader . Pompeo our assessment of Vladimir Putins intentions have not changed. He continues to view the greatest failure of the last century to be the dissolution of the soviet union. He is bent on returning the former soviet union to its former greatness and glory. That is the first thing he thinks about you today. You might add being reelected as a second thing he thinks about each day. Those are related in some ways. He moves about the world and is conveying to his audience the imperial power of the russian people. He hasnt changed. This administration is deeply aware that we need to continue to push back against the russians everywhere we find them. Lets talk about a little bit about the recent news stories about a possible mole within the cia that resulted in a loss of chinese assets and harkens back to losses we had, you were stationed on the iron curtain, losses of agents in the soviet union, dozen or so iranian recruits in the middle east who have been lost. The business of recruiting and running spies is hard but the records suggests we may not be as proficient as we all to be. Ought to be. Is this something that needs to get fixed . How do you assess where we are . Pompeo we are never what we be. Here we need to i actually saw this as a member of congress, i came in as the director a year ago intent on improving our capacity to protect our own information. We should make sure the secrets we steal are not restolen. We have an obligation to the American People to do that. Ive made a number of changes, one of which is to make sure were providing information so the department of justice can do it good work in bringing these traitors to heel in u. S. Courts. The second of which is making sure our organization has the resources it needs to deliver on its Counterintelligence Mission which includes ensuring were doing offensive counterintelligence, that is, working against our Advisory Services in a way that prevents them from getting inside of our service. One of the first things i did, the woman who runs our Counterintelligence Mission and reports directly to me now, was intentional, send a signal to two places. The cia will be serious about protecting our stuff, and second, to my workforce. The director was personally attentive to a mission that can fall too far down in the priority scheme. To me there are few things more important than protecting our officers, our assets and our information. Its also really hard to penetrate groups like al qaeda and isis. You have experience in serving on the front lines of the cold war, russian immigrants, was not a tribal culture in the same way. How hard is it, back before 9 11 we have almost no human assets. How hard is it to get intelligence on these terrorist networks . Pompeo they are difficult targets for sure, but as the u. S. Government has been successful against them in different places, whether it was a significant set of successes in the previous initiation administration against alqaeda, as with a significant success taking the caliphate away against isis. Provides real opportunities to reach in. There are more people who decide being part of team america might be better than being part of team jihadi. And so we are beneficiaries with the big disruptions that occur. They allow us to collective ways we cant when their force is united and we dont have any chance of to touch them. The success in syria against isis has been remarkable in terms of taking away their physical caliphate. But it arguably came at a little bit of a price because we did with kurdish fighters which is causing tension with turkey. We are perceived to lease by the sunni population in syria as being at least tacitly in an alliance with russian and iran in the fight against isis which pushes sunnis away from us and towards alqaeda which is sitting there waiting. Have we been too focused on isis and not focused enough on alqaeda . Can we defeat the Global Jihadi Movement without bringing sunnis into our orbit . Can we do this with kurds and russians and iranians or do we need a a sunni partner on the ground thats going to fight these guys . Pompeo we absolutely need sunni partners. We are working to do that. In the eastern department, we have been working on bringing in the sunnis in alongside our kurdish partners in there as well. I think theyve made Real Progress in there. This administration has broadly reached out to sunni countries all throughout the middle east to form coalitions against not only against isis but against iran as well. I think weve made some substantial progress there. If were going to be successful in taking down the jihadist threat we will absolutely need sunni partners aiding us in that effort. What worked in iraq during the search was the sons of iraq. That the sunni tribes came over. We were in force enabler by sending additional troops but it was a sunni uprising against alqaeda which was both a military defeat and ideological defeat because the jihadist claim to be the vanguard. When you are rejected by the sunnis, it sends a signal throughout the region. Are we doing, making any progress in getting the sons of iraq equivalent in syria and some of these other places where we are fighting them . Pompeo ill let others talk about the progress we are making there. You should know that the cia understands that. Our analytic assessment is much in line what you described. It is an absolute imperative that we achieve that. One last question and then i will turn it to the audience. This is a question i ask all National Security policymakers when they come through aei. During the 1988 president ial debate, no one asked either candidate about iraq. During the 2000 president ial debate, no one asked about alqaeda. Both those cases those two elements became the crisis that dominated both presidencies. What is the threat that is out there and do you see threats none of us see . What could really come out and surprises that you worry about at night . The list is long. We have things that could be in the National Intelligence priorities framework and we would all know them. Then there is a set of other things that others should not characterize as secondtier. In spite of the fact they are not in the news each day. Certainly, the Political Risk in unrest in south america are one of them. To make sure we get that right. The United States is watching what is taking place. Everybody south of our border, Central America and mexico. And we need to get right that some of these threats are real but they are not nationstates. Historically the threat to the United States with a country. What was america doing against the threat from yugoslavia or some other nationstate but today the threats are much more varied. Whether it is from groups like hezbollah or al qaeda or threats to our Information System or groups like wikileaks. They do not have a flag at the u. N. And they present real threats to the United States. We need to make sure that our collection, the way that we think about attacking our adversaries from an intelligence perspective matches that. We have to go back and fix some of the rules and laws that are designed to fix the nationstate challenge. We need to make sure we are watching those actors in the same way we would watch a threat from a traditional nationstate. Lets take some questions. Microphone coming to you. Good morning. Good to see you again. One of the unconventional threats were confronting as transnational organized crime. Ive been talking with you about this for good long while. In the year you have been director, has it been a priority of yours to put more intelligence resources in going after the Financial Network of drug traffickers and other forms of transnational organized crime, which is now playing an active role in the destruction of venezuela . And looking at influencing elections in colombia and mexico, where drug traffickers have a Significant Interest in sowing mayhem and optimizing supply chain of cocaine to the market here in the United States . Pompeo you could probably at others to the list and you could. Ist the taliban as well the taliban as well uses drug revenue to foment so much pain around the world. We have bolstered our capacity, our collection capacity. We have done that jointly with treasury department, secretary mnuchin at his team, working together to take the tradecraft we have historically used against networks that look and feel very much like Financial Networks and apply them against those very networks. There is still a long way to go. But what it delivers for policymakers is a set of options. Publicly, what you would see would be sanctions options but in other spaces, other ways we can disrupt because we know where the money is we have the capability to stop the flow. Were probably still not at the level we need to be but we are in a better place than we were just a short time ago. I just want to know, one of the challenges will be recovery of assets. The maduro regime has looted over 350 billion from venezuela, being able to recover those assets and reprocessing and giving them back to the venezuelan people to reconstruct the country would be our priority. Pompeo there are more than a halfdozen places in the world where we are watching large amounts of wealth being stolen from the people of that country. And our effort is to identify them, gain the capacity to take them away from the person who has title to them today and then use them for u. S. Foreign policy purposes. Frankly, in both cases returned them to the people from which they were looted. Director pompeo, how satisfied were you with the intelligence capabilities on north korea that you inherited when you came to langley . What do you see as the as the unknowables . What do you see as the things that are knowable that we dont about and should you go . Pompeo so when i i came and there was insufficient focus on the problems. Wasnt the case itd been ignored. It wasnt the case we had missed material things, but clearly had not received the focus and attention that were going to be needed to deliver for what this administration is going to ask of the Intelligence Community. Within weeks of becoming director, i created a Mission Center and stood it up with a Senior Leader he was retired. Brought her back to run the organization. I can see my Information Security people over here, a lot of folks working on it. [laughter] we are in a much better place today than we were 12 months ago. We are still suffering from having gaps. Part of it is not the Intelligence Communitys fault. But it is inadequate for the state to say it is a hard problem. Of course it is a hard problem, that is why you pay us. We are developing a Global Intelligence picture so we can understand rates of change and what is happening amongst the various leadership elements of north korea so we can see if the sanctions put in place are having an effect or sufficient effect. And which sets of people are being affected. There is enormous pressure that has been placed on me. To solve the riddle to close each of those gaps. Good to see you. I want to go back to what you said in the beginning, that north korea is a handful of months away from having a Nuclear Missile that could reach the United States. Is that good enough that a year from now they might still be a month or so from developing that . Pompeo yes. Policy is that we are going to denuclearize permanently, right . That we are going to close this risk. It is still a secondary mission to ensure that we keep them from having that capability. We often focus on timelines, because it is simple. It is not the way we ought to think about. Just the way we ought to think about it is reliability. Can they reliability deliver what kim jongun wants to be able to deliver against the United States of america. Its one thing to say yes, possible. If a missile the right direction and we got lucky, we could do it as opposed to certainty. This is the core of the deterrence theory. You have to be certain what you aim to deliver will actually be successful. You have to make sure your adversary believes that. That is what kim jongun is driving for. He is trying to put in our mind that he can do liver that. In our mind, the day he can do that is far off. You said a couple of months away. We know the intelligence before had it far in the future, six months, two years, with whatever and he was much faster than you thought. So, do you feel you have enough a coupleon in saying months away, to be certain . And also, on sanctions you said that is a gap, essentially. Of sanctions. So, do you see any impact now in theu trust also missile timeline . Mr. Pompeo i cannot answer your second question but i will do best to answer the first. Not that i dont know, i just cant share with you. On the first. You said somehow the Intelligence Community got this wrong, we did not see it coming. That is untrue. I have seen the news articles that have written that. It is not me bragging, this happen before my time. All of this work. The Intelligence Community on this one understood the capability and the testing capability. We will never get the week or month right on something this big right but we can get the capacity for change right. And we did. We believe we will continue to deliver ever good, solid information. We are pretty confident in that. One more question. Thank you. Wait for the microphone come up please. Thank you. [indiscernible] north korea wants dialogue with south korea. On the other hand, Nuclear Threat is that continued threat with nuclear. [indiscernible] is it possible to preemptive strike north korea if necessary . I will leave it to others to deliver the capacity for my intelligence perspective. Thosetrying to understand decisions as best as we can identify for him. We should remember we have partners there working on this diligently as well. The South Koreans themselves. The japanese. We are partners throughout the thoughtho share our that this is a global threat. The wholethreat to world. Host ok. Ladies and gentleman, we have to and it here. I ask everybody to stay seated while the director leaves. Director pompeo, i know you dont do a lot of those things, we are hugely grateful that you came here. Thank you. [applause] thank you. It is good to see you. A pleasure. Drugs thank you. Thank you. Announcer thursday, testifying before the Senate Armed Services committee about u. S. National security strategy. See live coverage here at 10 00 a. M. On cspan. Cspans washington journal, live it every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Theng up wednesday morning, trump organizations business conflicts of interest. We will talk about it with public citizens president robert wiseman. Then, the 2018 washington auto show to discuss the future of Automotive Technology and Ride Share Services with robert grant of lyft. And, discussing todays field hearing on Automotive Technology and the issues facing lawmakers and Auto Industry regulators. Also, kurt meyers shares his state approach to driverless vehicles and federal policy. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Wednesday morning. Join the discussion. Live wednesday on the cspan onworks that 10 30 a. M. Cspan, the Senate Budget committee holds an oversight hearing looking at the congressional budget office. I cspan2 at 10 00 a. M. Come the senate takes up the nomination of the next health and Human Services secretary. On cspan3 at 10 00 a. M. , the Senate Science and Transportation Committee looks at Auto Industry innovations. And at ralph hall and 20 p. M. The u. S. Council of mayors start their winter meetings in washington. Next, former Vice President jill biden on u. S. Relations with the kremlin, russias influence on the middle east, and the Foreign Policy under the obama administration. This is one hour