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Trump administration officials sound alarm on nuclear North Korea

By Elizabeth Shim
CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Thursday North Korea might have only a few months left to perfect its nuclear capability. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Thursday North Korea might have only a few months left to perfect its nuclear capability. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 20 (UPI) -- CIA Director Mike Pompeo said North Korea is reaching the peak of nuclear development.

Pompeo, who was speaking at a national security forum in Washington, D.C., said Thursday North Korea's capacity to attack the United States would soon reach its ultimate point after months of tests and development, Yonhap reported.

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Pompeo also said North Korea might have only a few months left to perfect its nuclear capability, and that the United States must act as if Pyongyang has already reached the peak of the process of building nuclear bombs and missiles that can attack the United States.

Pompeo's warning comes at a time when other members of the Trump administration are express the president's intolerance for a nuclear North Korea.

U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said Thursday at the Foundation for Defense and Democracy the White House finds North Korea's approach to negotiations unacceptable.

Trump is "not going to accept this regime threatening the United States with a nuclear weapon. He just won't accept it. There are those who have said, 'What about 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, according to Quartz.

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McMaster also said joint exercises with allies on the peninsula will not be traded for a freeze of Pyongyang's programs.

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