Trump's CIA pick tweets plan to "roll back" Iran nuke deal
President-elect Trump's pick to head the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo, tweeted his intention to 'roll back' the US nuclear deal with Iran, while also referring to the Islamic Republic as 'the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.'
The retired Army officer, West Point and Harvard Law School graduate has also defended the CIA's use of interrogation techniques that are widely condemned as torture.
A member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Pompeo, 52, was first elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave from the congressional district centered on his hometown of Wichita. Members of both parties regard him as intelligent, collegial and capable, with a keen grasp of national security issues.
"Mike is very bright and hard-working, and will devote himself to helping the agency develop the best possible intelligence for policy makers," said Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. "While we have had our share of strong differences—principally on the politicization of the tragedy in Benghazi—I know that he is someone who is willing to listen and engage."
Pompeo "is a serious guy who studies issues carefully," said former National Security Agency and CIA director Michael Hayden.
Some civil liberties and human rights advocates, however, expressed concern over Pompeo's selection because he opposes closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
They also criticized his support for the National Security Agency's now-defunct bulk communications metadata collection and other surveillance programs.
"These positions and others merit serious public scrutiny through a confirmation process," said Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In a January op-ed in the Wall Street Journal he co-authored, Pompeo called for a "fundamental upgrade to America's surveillance capabilities," including resuming bulk collection of domestic phone metadata, the numbers and time stamps of calls, but not their content.
The program, which a federal appeals court and two governmental review panels found to be illegal and ineffective, should be expanded to include "publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database", and that "legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed," he wrote.
Pompeo also is at odds with the intelligence community's assessment of the 2015 deal that lifted financial sanctions from Iran in return for limits on its nuclear program.
He has vowed to overturn the deal, and suggested in a 2014 roundtable with journalists that the United States should bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, a proposal that US intelligence experts said would only delay Tehran's development of a warhead, not halt it.
He has taken positions that are at odds with Trump's, notably on Russia's actions in Ukraine and its military support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who also is supported by Iran.
Russia has established a toehold in the Middle East, and "we now have the Iranian-Russian axis there largely running free," Pompeo told a security forum in 2015.
Pompeo stands a good chance of being confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. Announcement of his nomination was warmly greeted by Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will conduct his confirmation hearing.
