missile test. south korean officials say that launch could come any day. north korea officials are warning foreigners in the south to leave the country because of the threat of nuclear war in the region. while the white house is dismissing that, quote, unhelpful rhetoric. the pentagon is preparing to intercept any missile that threatens u.s. forces or american allies. i believe we have the credible ability to defend the home land, to defend hawaii, defend guam, to defend our deployed forces and to defend our allies. during his testimony, admiral locklear was pressured to get china more involved to keep peace on the korean peninsula. john kerry is hinting at new usa for syrian rebels. he can committeded into and medical supplies to the free syrian army and meet with
japanese territory, interceptor missiles could be used to destroy it. i would recommend action if it s aimed ought our allies. reporter: this launch could be different from previous tests when the u.s. had significant indications on what was about to happen before liftoff. to understand the direction of a launch, where it was at. reporter: u.s. radars will calculate their trajectory of north korea s road mobile missile. but admits the u.s. won t know as much as soon. we re probably looking at being able to see it being if a general location, and ten to sense a launch. reporter: will north korea launch or stand down? locklear says it s hard to read kim jong-un. his father and grandfather, as far as i could see, always figured into their provocation cycle an off-ramp of how to get out of it. it s not clear to me how he has
we are. the our pacific commander today said that we are ready, with a variety of responses, and the south koreans, should there be an attack on south korea or us. but it s also clear, he said, that we can shoot down a missile that is aimed at us. those two points were made very clearly this morning, by admiral locklear, both that we can shoot down a missile if it is targeted at south korea or at us. but also, that we have that we will act. and we are ready to act in some proportionate way to an attack by north korea. because as you well know, senator, in 2010, the two incidents you mentioned when north korea attacked positions in south korea, including killing 46 south korean sailors aboard that warship, there was no retaliation either from south korea or the united states. what i hear you saying, this time there will be. this is what the admiral
says, and i believe it s true. that is, that north koreans this time can expect that there will be a response. now, he didn t lay out what the options are, nor should he in public. but he did say very precisely, that this time it would be likely and expected there would be a response. frankly, i think it s obvious that the north koreans would face some kind of a response in the words of admiral locklear, and this time would not get off without that kind of response. it would be presumably proportionate in some way to what the attack is. we re not going to up the ante and have events spiral out of control, if we can help it. but north korea s not going to get off scott-free if they attack an ally. 50,000 troops in japan, 6,000 on the island of guam. and it raises questions, have they gone into a heightened
test launch of north korean missiles could be imminent, and that north korea would not give the standard warning to shipping in the region, to aviation in the region. they re taking this very, very seriously. what do you make of this? well, obviously it has to be taken very, very seriously. i think, look, i ve got the latest issue of the economists, which basically says korean roulette. and you see kim jong-un s finger on the red button. that sums up the ngs ati of the world right now. at a point where there are unprecedented threats. we simply have not heard these kind of threats from the north korean leadership for, you know, more than 20 years or so. so they are very concerned. i was fascinated by senator levin and indeed the admiral in charge of the pacific command, admiral locklear, who testified today, that they would not necessarily recommend shooting down a north korean missile unless it was aimed in anger and targeted either at the u.s.