Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants the United States to shoot down any missile fired from North Korea, regardless of its target.
There had been speculation that North Korea could test-fire a missile on Monday, the anniversary of the birth of its first leader, Kim Il Sung. But it did not do so on the holiday, despite current leader Kim Jong Un’s recent threats off firing a missile.
McCain, a senior Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) member, said Monday that as “the world waits to see whether North Korea will act on its threat to test launch a medium-range ballistic missile, I maintain that the United States should treat any North Korean missile launch as a threat to our national security and our allies, and that we should shoot it down once it leaves North Korean airspace.”
“North Korea’s leaders should have no doubt that the United States of America has both the capability and the will to eliminate the threats they seek to pose to international peace and stability,” McCain said in a statement.
U.S. Pacific Command head Adm. Samuel Locklear told McCain last Tuesday that the United States has the capability to intercept a missile from North Korea. Still, the admiral said, during a SASC hearing, that he would only recommend shooting down a missile if he knew the intended target.
Locklear said the United States “in this case from this particular site” would need to know “where (a missile) would be going and what we need to do about it.”
Kim Jong Un’s threats came last week just as President Barack Obama unveiled his Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2014.
Hawkish Republican lawmakers have charged the Pentagon’s missile-defense proposal does not do enough to counter the threat from North Korea.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced March 15 that the Pentagon will boost missile-defense efforts–including burying more missile interceptors in Alaska and conducting environmental-impact studies on a potential East Coast facility–in response to Iran and North Korea’s work to develop long-range missiles (Defense Daily, March 18).