According to the Intelligence Community’s 2022 Annual Threat Assessment released Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
Now, with the US on the cusp of a diplomatic deal with Iran over its nuclear program, as well as a potential deal to free four American prisoners, it’s unclear whether the Biden administration can secure any further concessions or convince Tehran to do so. cease its other malicious activities, including within the United States.
CBS News received two standing threat assessments submitted to Congress by the State Department in January 2022 that mention a “grave and present threat” to the lives of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Trump administration envoy to Iran Brian Hook. These non-public assessments show that throughout 2021 and again in 2022, the State Department was evaluating the need for 24/7 U.S. taxpayer-funded diplomatic protection for both men.
The huge security retinue that continues to travel with Pompeo, a potential 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has drawn attention during his public appearances, including at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The detail size rivals that of a typical incumbent cabinet minister.
The most recent threat assessment, signed by Under Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon, cites a July 16, 2021 determination that Pompeo faced such threats “from a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.” McKeon also said that he has determined on at least three occasions that a specific threat to former envoy Hook requires security, most recently in November 2021.
Two current and three former US officials have confirmed that Iran is a foreign player, but details of the specific threats were not described in the assessments provided to Congress. The Free Beacon first reported the existence of a closed threat assessment.
The FBI also thwarted an Iranian intelligence network plot to kidnap New York journalist Maseh Alinejad, and Tehran is threatening current US officials in a move that was publicly acknowledged by the intelligence community on Tuesday. The ODNI report said that the threat to current officials was in retaliation for a US drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful military general, Commander Qasem Soleimani, in January 2020, and that Iran had “previously attempted to conduct lethal operations in the United States.” “
On Facing the Nation last Sunday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken sidestepped the question of whether a renewed diplomatic deal with Iran over its nuclear program would also address threats on U.S. soil, including those aimed at his predecessor, Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state. when Soleimani was hit. Instead, Blinken addressed the broader threat posed by Iranian malefactors to U.S. personnel, saying, “We will stand and act against them every single day.”
The Secretary of State has previously said that Iran will have enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in a few weeks, so the US is trying to revive a 2015 international agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that will lift sanctions on Iran in exchange. to temporarily limit its nuclear development. President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, imposing sanctions on Iran, and in July 2019, Iran began nuclear activities outside of the agreement. According to the intelligence community, if Iran does not get the sanctions lifted, it will continue to enrich its nuclear fuel to weapons grade.
“When we initially participated in the deal, it was very clear to us that nothing in the deal prevents us from taking action against Iran when it is involved in actions that threaten us, threaten our allies and partners. This will continue,” Blinken said.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff agrees that threats should not count in any renewed Iran nuclear deal.
“These other malicious acts by Iran, their plots against American personnel or Americans around the world, that we can and must deal with separately, and we must fight them aggressively,” Schiff told Face the Nation on Sunday. “We have to go after all of this, not necessarily in one agreement.”
However, the Biden administration has been unequivocal about its commitment to one specific issue that goes beyond the Iranian nuclear program, namely the fate of the four Americans imprisoned in Iran. Last month, US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley told Reuters that a nuclear deal was unlikely without their release. Iran is pushing to unfreeze billions of dollars of state assets held in bank accounts in US allied South Korea in exchange for the release of imprisoned Westerners.
Iran: Crisis in the Middle East
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