Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo will berate the media for labeling him a “hawk” when he delivers prepared remarks during his secretary of state confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday.
“I know firsthand the painful sacrifices of our men and women in uniform,” Pompeo will say, according to advance excerpts provided by the White House.
He will go on to lash out at journalists, including from institutions like the New York Times, who have labeled him a “hawk” favoring a tough-guy world view.
“So when journalists, most of whom have never met me, label me — or any of you — as ‘hawks,’ ‘war hardliners,’ or worse, I shake my head,” Pompeo will say.
“There are few who dread war more than those of us who have served in uniform,” he will say. Pompeo, who served as a U.S. congressman from Kansas before joining the CIA, also served in the Army.
“And there is a great deal of room between a military presence and war,” Pompeo will say. “War is always the last resort. I would prefer achieving the President’s foreign policy goals with unrelenting diplomacy rather than by sending young men and women to war.”
Pompeo has developed the reputation of being a “hawk” due to his hardline views on Iran and North Korea, among other things.
He will seek to assuage concerns about any hawkish behavior by saying he is committed to seeking a solution to fix the Iran nuclear deal and staying committed to planned talks between President Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un to achieve denuclearization.
He will also say that the U.S.’s “soft policy” toward Russian aggression is “now over,” according to his prepared remarks.
