WASHINGTON -- CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that North Korea is moving "ever closer" to putting Americans at risk with a nuclear-tipped missile and that he believes leader Kim Jong Un won't rest until he's able to threaten multiple nuclear attacks against the U.S. at the same time.
Speaking after one year on the job, Pompeo also said the CIA believes Kim would not only use nuclear weapons to stay in power, but to threaten to reunify the divided Korean Peninsula under his totalitarian regime.
"North Korea is ever closer to being able to hold America at risk." Pompeo said at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think-tank in Washington. "I want everyone to understand that we are working diligently to make sure that a year from now I can still tell you that they are several months away from having that capacity. It's not a static timeframe."
Despite his warning, Pompeo doesn't think a North Korean attack on the United States is imminent. He has said that President Donald Trump is going to do everything possible to avoid taking military action against Pyongyang.
"There is much effort all across the U.S. government to ensure that Americans don't have to feel at risk," Pompeo said. "We saw what happened in Hawaii. It is an imperative -- an American, national imperative -- that we as an intelligence agency deliver the information to our senior leaders such that they can resolve this issue in a way that works for the American people."
Earlier this month, Hawaiian residents were in a panic after a false alarm warned that a ballistic missile was headed for the islands. People abandoned cars and prepared to flee their homes, until officials finally said the cellphone alert was a mistake.
