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US weighs rules for any Korean missile strike
 The US Defense Department is weighing whether a decision to shoot down any suspected inbound North Korean missile should go all the way to the president, a top general told Congress on Wednesday.
| Ummm... How's "no" sound? |
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command that coordinates US missile defense operations, said the authorization would ideally come from the president and the secretary of defense, but there might not be time enough.
| Jumped right on that one, didn't he? |
"As you can imagine, getting the president, the secretary, the regional combat commander into a conversation and a conference in a three to four-minute time frame is going to be challenging," Cartwright told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense. "So what are the rules that we lay down? We are working very hard with the secretary to lay down those rules and understand the risks associated with those very quick and timely decisions that are going to have to be made ... when we deal with the North Korean threat," he testified.
| I'd go with "shoot first and ask questions later." How about you? |
North Korea, at odds with the United States over its nuclear programme, is believed to have the capability to mount a warhead on one of its long-range missiles, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress last month. Cartwright said the US missile defense system is designed to "characterize" a threat in its first three to four minutes of flight.
Posted by: Fred 2005-05-13 |
