WASHINGTON -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel warned Wednesday that North Korea has come very close to a "dangerous line" with its sharp statements iand provocative steps.
| Is a 'dangerous line' anything like a 'red line'? |
"North Korea has been, with its bellicose rhetoric, its actions, has been skating very close to a dangerous line," he said during a press conference at the Pentagon. "Their actions and words have not helped defuse a combustible situation."
He emphasized that North Korea's threats should be ratcheted down and its actions "neutralized."
Hagel noted North Korea's young fat-faced leader, Kim Jong-un, is unpredictable amid reports that the communist nation may soon launch a ballistic missile with a range of 3,000-4,000 kilometers from a mobile launcher on the east coast. Some suggest the North may also be getting ready to fire other types of missiles into the Pacific.
In the event that Pyongyang remains recalcitrant, the U.S. is fully prepared to take any contingency measures, added the Pentagon boss.
"The reality is that he (Kim) is unpredictable. That country is unpredictable. If that is the reality that we're dealing with, and it is, you prepare for every contingency," Hagel said.
Sitting next to Hagel, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not provide a detailed assessment of whether Pyongyang has mastered a technology to mount a nuclear bomb onto a missile.
"The proximity of the North Koreans to achieving a miniaturization of a nuclear device on a ballistic missile is really a classified matter," he said. "In the absence of concrete evidence to the contrary, we have to assume the worst case. And that's why we're postured as we are today." |