CIA director Mike Pompeo said President Donald Trump is determined to prevent North Korea from making the breakthrough "whether it happens on Tuesday or a month from Tuesday."
Both Pompeo and US National Security Adviser HR McMaster said Trump would still prefer to use sanctions and diplomacy to force Kim to come to the table to discuss disarmament.
But, speaking to a Washington policy forum, both also warned that the use of US military force remains an option to prevent Pyongyang from acquiring a long-range nuclear missile.
"They are close enough now in their capabilities that from a US policy perspective we ought to behave as if we are on the cusp of them achieving that objective," Pompeo said. Click here to donate for free tuition University Education for the poor and you will richly be blessed by God
Pompeo said US intelligence had kept close tabs on the North Korean program in the past, but that its missile expertise is now growing too quickly to be sure when it will succeed.
"But when you're now talking about months our capacity to understand that at a detailed level is in some sense irrelevant," he said.
"The president's made it very clear,"
he added.
"He's prepared to ensure that Kim Jong-Un doesn't have the capacity to hold America at risk. By military force if necessary."
This week, North Korea's deputy UN ambassador declared that Pyongyang would not put its nuclear arsenal nor ballistic missile program on the table unless Washington drops its "hostile" stance.
And Kim's regime has made no secret of its efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting US mainland cities or bases in the Pacific, conducting regular tests.
McMaster told the conference, organized by the Federation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), that the regime would not be allowed to develop arms that would threaten the United States.
"We are not out of time but we are running out of time," Trump's top security adviser said.
"The president has been very clear. He's not going to
accept this regime threatening the United States with nuclear weapons,"
he warned. "There are those that say, 'accept and deter'. Well, 'accept and deter' is unacceptable."
Ending Iran nuclear deal would worsen North Korea situation: Kerry
GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump risks driving Iran towards nuclear proliferation and worsening a standoff with North Korea if Washington ends a nuclear deal with Tehran, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said late on Thursday.
Kerry, who negotiated the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers, was speaking a week after Trump refused to certify that Tehran was in compliance with it, amid growing tensions with Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Click here to donate for free tuition University Education for the poor and you will richly be blessed by God
"If you want to negotiate with (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un, and your goal is to avoid war and try to be able to have a diplomatic resolution, the worst thing you can do is first threaten to destroy his country in the United Nations," Kerry said.
He was speaking in a private lecture delivered at Geneva's Graduate Institute.
"And secondly, screw around with the deal that has already been made because the message is, don't make a deal with the United States, they won't keep their word," he said.
The nuclear deal places Iran under tough restraints, including inspections, round-the-clock surveillance and tracking every ounce of uranium produced, Kerry said. "We would notice an uptick in their enrichment, like that," he said, snapping his fingers.
"And nobody that I know of with common sense can understand what the virtue is in accelerating a confrontation with the possibility that they might decide they want to break out and make it (a nuclear bomb) now instead of 10 or 15 or 25 years from now."
Kerry, a former Senator who headed the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Swiss media that Trump's leaving the Iranian deal's fate to Congress was "very dangerous" and opened the door to "party politics".
Congress cannot unilaterally renegotiate a multilateral accord, the Geneva daily Le Temps quoted him as saying. "It is possible that Congress would make an unreasonable decision that would put Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a very complicated political situation that could force him to retaliate. It's a slippery slope."
Khamenei said on Wednesday that Tehran would stick to its accord as long as the other signatories respected it, but would "shred" the deal if Washington pulled out, state TV reported.
If Iran violated the accord, U.N. sanctions would snap back into place, Kerry told the audience. "Moreover, at that point in time folks, we have a year of break-up. We have all the time that we need in the world to be able to bomb their facilities into submission."
Ending the deal could lead to Iran hiding fissile production facilities "deep in a mountain where we have no insight".
"So the scenario that Trump opens up by saying 'let's get rid of the deal' is actually proliferation, far more damaging and dangerous," Kerry said.
US preparing for North Korea's 'final step'
Washington (CNN)CIA
Director Mike Pompeo said the United States has to act as if North
Korea is on the verge of being able to strike it with a missile and act
accordingly -- and that President Donald Trump is ready to do so.
Why does North Korea hate the US? 01:53
"From
a US policy perspective, we ought to behave as if we are on the cusp of
them achieving that objective," Pompeo said Thursday at a security
forum held by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "They are so
far along in that, it's now a matter of thinking about how do you stop
the final step."
"Whether
it happens on Tuesday or a month from Tuesday, we're in a time where
the President has concluded that we have a global effort to ensure that
[North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un does not obtain that capacity," Pompeo
continued.
Pompeo is among a
number of former officials who have been signaling the increased
possibility of a slide into military confrontation with North Korea over
its refusal to back down from its nuclear program.
N. Korea: No diplomacy until ICBM can hit US 02:29
The
CIA chief spoke at the forum shortly before national security adviser
H.R. McMaster, who also said the President wasn't prepared to accept a
nuclear Pyongyang.
The
Trump administration comments came a day after former CIA Director John
Brennan put the chances of military conflict with North Korea as high
as 20% to 25%.
The isolated Asian
nation conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test in September,
claiming it had detonated a miniaturized hydrogen bomb that could be
mounted on a missile. It's also been steadily working on its missile capabilities, firing 22 missiles during 15 tests from February to mid-September.
Even
as other countries have urged caution, dialogue and reciprocal
confidence-building measures, Trump has belittled the North Korean
leader as "rocket man," dismissed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's
efforts to broker a diplomatic solution, and hinted that he is ready to
take military action.
Tillerson: US wouldn't walk from N. Korea deal 01:56
Asked
at Thursday's event about the threat posed by North Korea, McMaster
said that Trump will not accept a nuclear North Korea that threatens the
US, putting the administration in a "race" to resolve the increasingly
tense standoff before it devolves into a military confrontation.
"He's
not going to accept this regime threatening the United States with
nuclear weapons," McMaster said. "There are those who would say, well,
why not accept and deter. Well, accept and deter is unacceptable."
"So
this puts us in a situation where we are in a race to resolve this
short of military action," McMaster said. "Everybody knows it. We all
know it. ... Our allies and partners know it. China knows it. Russia
knows it."
Brennan, speaking
Wednesday night at Fordham University School of Law, stressed that,
"there really is no good military solution to this issue."
"A 1 in 4, 1 in 5 chance"
"The
prospects for military conflict on the Korean Peninsula are greater
than they have been in several decades," he said. "I don't think it's
likely or probable, but if it's a one in four, one in five chance,
that's too high." Asked if that's the rating he'd give for the chances
of conflict, he said, "Yeah, I guess I would."
Kim Jong Un: What we know about him 01:43
Brennan
sketched out a scenario in which, "some kind of limited military
engagement that would result in some deaths, that could then quickly
trigger some retaliatory strikes that could escalate." On top of that
"conventional scenario of escalation," he reminded the crowd that North
Korea has finely honed cyber capabilities. Click here to donate for free tuition University Education for the poor and you will richly be blessed by God
"So
I think we have to be mindful here that there are a number of scenarios
here that could lead to an escalation that we really need to be trying
to avoid," Brennan said. Trump isn't helping on that score, he said.
CNN uncovers N. Korea smuggling scheme 03:28
"You
have two leaders of the two major protagonist countries that are
hurling these broadsides back and forth, and they have a lot of personal
political face involved in it," he said.
"I
don't agree that the tack that Mr. Trump has taken is a constructive
and productive one," Brennan said, calling the references to "Rocket
Man" and other insults "irresponsible."
McMaster
praised Trump's handling of the crisis, saying that the President's
leadership had created the possibility of an "unprecedented level of
international cooperation on the issue."
He
also praised Tillerson's efforts to increase international pressure on
North Korea, which has moved some countries to cut diplomatic relations
with Pyongyang, expel its ambassadors and in some cases, ban North
Korean guest workers. North Korea, meanwhile, has said it won't be willing to talk to the US until it ensures it has missile and nuclear capabilities.
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