Pompeo faces uphill battle in Senate confirmation hearing
WASHINGTON — Mike Pompeo, facing tough questions Thursday in a Senate confirmation hearing for secretary of state, called for using “relentless diplomacy” to avoid war but came under fire from Democrats who questioned whether he would stand up to President Donald Trump when necessary to restore American influence around the world.
Pompeo, 54, served six years as a tea party Republican member of Congress from Kansas before Trump picked him early last year to lead the CIA. Given the turmoil in the president’s Cabinet, he kept a low public profile but was known as a fierce Trump loyalist in a spy service that prides itself on being apolitical.
Pompeo sought to mollify his Democratic critics in an often contentious five-hour hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that did little to undermine his chances for confirmation by the full Senate, where he has numerous allies.
If he is confirmed as the nation’s top diplomat, Pompeo said, his “first priority” would be to revitalize the demoralized State Department after a year of painful staff cuts and highlevel departures under Rex Tillerson, whom Trump fired last month.
“I’ll do my part to end the vacancies,” Pompeo said. He vowed to foster a State Department culture that “finds its swagger once again. We will be effective, expeditionary, diverse and successful in fulfilling our mission.”
The barrel-chested West Point graduate and veteran of the Gulf War pushed back on criticism that he is a war hawk and hard-liner. No one “understands the value of diplomacy and the terror and tragedy that is war like someone who has served in uniform,” he said. “It’s the last resort. It must always be so.”
Pompeo, a sharp critic of the 2015 nuclear disarmament accord with Iran, acknowledged that Iran is complying with terms of the deal. But he went back and forth as to whether he would seek to fix what he called “its egregious flaws,” or withdraw and then try to renegotiate it — even though European allies and Iran have rejected that possibility.
“If confirmed it will be an immediate personal priority to work with (U.S.) partners to see if such a fix is achievable,” he said. Trump has vowed to withdraw from the deal next month unless it is revised.
Pompeo vowed to toughen U.S. sanctions that have targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and other senior government officials. Moscow “continues to act aggressively, enabled by years of soft policy toward that aggression. That’s now over,” Pompeo said. Russia, he added, “has not gotten the message.”
If confirmed, Pompeo also will help plan a proposed high-stakes nuclear summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a task he was already immersed in as CIA director. Trump said last week that the meeting would occur in late May or early June.
“No one is under any illusions” that a summit would produce a comprehensive agreement to strip North Korea of its nuclear weapons, Pompeo said. But it could “set us down the course to achieve a diplomatic outcome that America and the world so desperately need.”
Pompeo said he read CIA histories of previous failed U.S. negotiations with North Korea and is “confident that we will not repeat the mistakes” of the past. “President Trump isn’t one to play games at the negotiating table — and I won’t be either,” he added.
Pressed by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Pompeo also denied that he had ever called for overthrowing the North Korean government. “I have never advocated for regime change,” Pompeo said. “I am not advocating for regime change.”
He also pledged to rebuild the U.S. diplomatic presence in Cuba, which has dropped to a skeleton staff. Former President Barack Obama sought to end a half-century of hostilities with Havana by re-establishing diplomatic ties in 2015, but Trump has reversed course and made it more difficult for travel and business.