CIA Director Mike Pompeo told senators Thursday at his confirmation hearing for secretary of State that he vows to promote democracy and end the “demoralizing” vacancies at the State Department.
“If we do not lead the calls for democracy, prosperity and human rights around the world, who will?” Pompeo said during his testimony at the hearing. “No other nation is equipped with the same blend of power and principle.”
Pompeo, a former Republican Congressman from Kansas with a reputation for a hawkish approach to American security, has been a lightning rod for criticism from rights advocates and some Democrats who worry he'll lead the president into war.
In addressing his hawkish reputation on the left, Pompeo said, “War is the last resort… and I know I work for a president who feels the same.”
"The U.S. needs a military balance of power but “the best outcome are always won at the diplomatic table…. Diplomacy gives us a chance to achieve what we want peacefully,” he added.
President Trump is in the process of deciding how to respond to an alleged chemical attack in Syria that has been blamed on forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who Russia has pledged to protect. Trump taunted Russia Wednesday, saying on Twitter that missiles “will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’”
Saturday's chemical attack happened after Trump told a crowd in Ohio on March 29 that he’d like to withdraw troops from Syria “very soon.” Pompeo at the time joined other members of the president’s national security staff to warn that doing so would be a mistake.
Former Senate majority leader Bob Dole, R-Kansas, joined a group of senators who sang Pompeo’s praises before the nominee testified.
He listed the highlights of Pompeo’s resume: West Point graduate, army veteran, businessman, congressman, father, husband. “All those things add up to the experience he has,” Dole said. “He’s ready to go.”
Many of the State Department’s most experienced diplomats have departed in the past year, while many ambassadorships remain unfilled around the world.
Trump’s first secretary of State, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s efforts to reorganize and streamline the department wound up hollowing out its top ranks, said Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, a professional organization and labor union.
“With all the threats facing our country, this is not the time to pull the foreign service team from the field and risk forfeiting the game to our adversaries,” Stephenson told USA TODAY.
Pompeo said he plans to help State employees feel relevant again and to help them gain the resources they need.
“When I took over as director (of the CIA) I immediately started a massive restructure,” he said, adding that he told his staff “to come talk to me.”
“When my team needed additional resources, I asked for them. And the president never hesitated to provide,” he said. At State, “with your help I will do the same thing.”
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking democrat on the Senate committee, questioned the close relationship Pompeo had developed with Trump as CIA director.
Menendez asked Pompeo if he will “enable President Trump’s worst instincts” or guide him to moderation.
“Will be working from crisis to crisis?” Menendez asked. “Will you stand up to President Trump to say ‘no’ or will you be a yes man?”
Pompeo gained President Trump’s trust while advising the president on a number of confrontations that will be decided in the coming days and months.
Menendez later questioned Pompeo's interactions with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Pompeo said he spoke to Mueller. “He interviewed me,” he said. “I’ve cooperated with both investigations, he said referring to Mueller’s and the investigation by Congress.
Pushed by Menendez to detail what he told Mueller and other investigators, Pompeo demurred. “As long as these investigations continue I will not speak about the conversations I’ve had,” he said.
Menendez responded that Pompeo appeared to not be as candid as he would expect from a secretary of State who will testify in the future to the committee. “Your unwillingness to speak to this is troubling,” Menendez said.
Trump is preparing for a proposed summit in May with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss the North’s nuclear weapons program, which Kim has said is aimed at deterring a U.S. threat.
On North Korea, Pompeo said, “We have a responsibility to make sure Kim Jong Un does not threaten the United States of America with a nuclear weapon.”
Pompeo underscored that he had never advocated for regime change in the isolated nation. "I am not advocating for regime change,” he said.
Trump is also poised to decide in May on whether to kill or stick with the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama.
Pompeo opposed the agreement, which limited Iran's nuclear activities for a time, while lifting international sanctions. A year after it was signed, he wrote that while the deal prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons for a few years, provisions in the deal that allow Iran to produce nuclear fuel on an industrial-scale in the future means that eventually it will be able to develop those weapons.
“Congress must act to change Iranian behavior, and, ultimately, the Iranian regime,” Pompeo wrote in an op-ed for Fox News in July 2016.
More recently, Pompeo told CBS News that while Obama didn’t want to upset Iran during the nuclear negotiations, the situation now is different.
“This administration has taken a much stronger approach, a much more aggressive posture with respect to countering Iran,” Pompeo said.
On Russia, Pompeo has historically had some choice words.
“I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that, but I'm confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election (and) that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won't be great,” Pompeo told the BBC in January.
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