Possible N. Korean missile launch creates U.S. debate

The U.S. suggested Thursday it has limited ability to shoot a North Korean missile out of the sky and spurned suggestions of a pre-emptive strike on the ground. Still, it warned the Koreans would pay a cost for a missile launch.

The solution, said President Bush?s national security adviser, is for the North to “give it up and not launch” the long-range missile the U.S. believes is being fueled and prepared.

“We think diplomacy is the right answer and that is what we are pursuing,” Steven Hadley told reporters.

The words came as tensions persisted over North Korea’s apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile ? and amid disagreements over U.S. military options for responding. The missile, with a believed range of up to 9,300 miles, is potentially capable of reaching the mainland United States.

A Pentagon official said Pyongyang risked unspecified retaliation in proceeding.

“If such a launch takes place, we would seek to impose some cost on North Korea,” Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told the House Armed Services Committee.

Vice President Dick Cheney brushed aside a suggestion by former Defense Secretary William Perry that the Korean missile be obliterated at the launch site.

“I appreciate Bill’s advice,” Cheney said in an interview with CNN. “I think, obviously, if you’re going to launch strikes at another nation, you’d better be prepared to not just fire one shot. And the fact of the matter is I think the issue is being addressed appropriately.”

Cheney said that North Korea’s “missile capabilities are fairly rudimentary” and that “their test flights in the past haven’t been notably successful. But we are watching it with interest and following it very closely.”

Missile defense experts disagreed on current U.S. ability to destroy such a missile once it is fired. But they seemed in agreement that shooting at it ? and missing ? would be a huge embarrassment.

“Either it won’t work, in which case you’ve just undermined the rationale for the system. Or if it does work, you have created an even bigger international crisis,” said Ivo Daalder, a White House national security aide in the Clinton administration.

“Even when you do intercept it, there’s the real question of what have you done? These are international waters. Is this an act of war?” said Daalder, now a foreign policy and missile-defense specialist at the Brookings Institution.

Loren Thompson, a defense consultant at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., said there are “two basic problems” with trying to shoot down a Korean missile.

“Our system is barely operational. And the impact on Korean perceptions if we miss could be counterproductive,” Thompson said.

“Bombs work a lot better than missile defense systems,” Thompson added, echoing Perry’s suggestion for a pre-emptive air strike.

In an opinion article in Thursday’s Washington Post, Perry and former assistant defense secretary Ashton B. Carter wrote that Bush should immediately declare that the U.S. would destroy the missile before it could be fired.

“Diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature,” wrote Perry and Carter. Both served in the Clinton administration.