WASHINGTON, June 22: US Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday shot down a suggestion that the United States consider a limited pre-emptive attack to prevent North Korea from launching a long-range missile.
At the same time, Mr Cheney said that ‘North Korean missile capabilities are fairly rudimentary’ and that ‘their test flights in the past haven’t been notably successful.
“I think, at this stage, we are addressing the issue in the proper fashion,” Mr Cheney said in an interview with CNN television when asked about a first-strike proposal floated by former defence secretary William Perry.
“And I think, obviously, if you’re going to launch a strike 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,” said Cheney.
The vice president said the United States was closely following the possible test-launch and confirmed that Washington believed the missile on the launch pad was a Taepodong-2 with a third stage giving it long range, but cautioned ‘we don’t know what the payload is’.
“This is not the kind of behaviour we’d like to see, given the fact the North Koreans do have a nuclear program and have refused to come clean about it,” he said.
“They will obviously generate concern on the part of their neighbours and the United States to the extent that they continue to operate this way.”
Earlier, in a Washington Post opinion piece co-authored with a fellow Pentagon official under president Bill Clinton, Mr Perry called for an ultimatum for North Korea to defuel and put away the missile or face a US missile strike to destroy it before it can be launched.
Mr Perry and co-author Ashton Carter said ‘intervening before mortal threats to US security can develop is surely a prudent policy’.—AFP
