"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," he said.

Pentagon officials earlier warned North Korea the United States would "seek to impose some cost" if it went ahead with the missile launch and signaled US readiness to use a missile defense system to protect Americans.

Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said a North Korean missile launch "would be a provocation and a dangerous action which would have to have some consequences."

He told lawmakers "there would be a reaction, and it would be a mistake for North Korea to do it."

The United States and its allies in Asia have repeatedly warned North Korea against launching a long-range missile. Russia Thursday expressed its concerns about a launch to the North Korean ambassador to Moscow.

Preparations for the launch of a multi-stage Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles) have been underway for several weeks at Musudanri on the remote northeast coast of North Korea.

South Korean officials said a launch was not imminent, and the communist North has made no substantial moves for several days towards a launch.

A senior US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US military would use any capability it has to protect the American people if a missile is launched at the United States.

"Obviously the United States military would use any capabilities it had if it could protect the American people," he said

However, he said the US missile defense system would not necessarily be used if a missile launched by North Korea was headed into open ocean.

"If there is a test in which a missile goes up, for example, and it is headed into the ocean or whatever, would that be necessarily a trigger for our defensive systems? No, it wouldn't be," said the official.

His comments were the clearest official indication yet that the United States has activated its missile defense system.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post co-authored with Ashton Carter, a former Pentagon official, Perry said "intervening before mortal threats to US security can develop is surely a prudent policy."

"Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched.

"This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead," Perry and Carter said.

They argued that the US missile defense system is unproven against a North Korean threat and has performed unevenly in tests.

"A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have," they said.

Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, said President George W. Bush wanted to solve the crisis diplomatically and called on North Korea to respect a self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests.

He said that a missile launch would be "disruptive" to stalled six-party talks aimed at convincing Pyongyang to drop its nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea has boycotted the talks since November.

"The solution is for North Korea to decide to respect its own moratorium, not to test this missile, come back to the six-party talks, and let's talk about how to implement the agreement for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that was reached last September," said Hadley, who was traveling with Bush in Hungary.

They also noted that Russia's international policies all too often ran contrary to theirs, citing the debate over sanctions against Iran, the question of dealing with the radical ruling Hamas movement in the Palestinian territories, and Russian President Vladimir Putin's support for Belarus' authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

"We attach great importance to our relationship with Russia and are pursuing deeper cooperation on a range of issues of common interest, including some important foreign policy issues, non-proliferation and counterterrorism," said the text adopted during a visit Wednesday by U.S. President George W. Bush.

The Western nations will continue to collaborate with Moscow on Iran and the Middle East.
Click Here!

Lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi, a Sunni Arab who represented Saddam and his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, was abducted from his home Wednesday morning. His body was found riddled with bullets on a street near the Shiite slum of Sadr City.

Saddam's chief attorney, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the killing on the Interior Ministry, which Sunnis have alleged is infiltrated by so-called Shiite death squads.


There was no comment from the ministry.

Bushra al-Khalil, a Lebanese member of the defense team, said al-Obeidi was taken from his house by men dressed in police uniforms and driving four-wheel-drive vehicles used by Iraqi security forces.

However, al-Obeidi's wife, Um Laith, was quoted on the New York Times' Web site as saying the attackers wore civilian clothes. She said 20 men burst into their house while the couple and their children were sleeping, and identified themselves as members of an Interior Ministry security brigade.

The Times also quoted Iraqi witnesses as saying al-Obeidi was transported in a convoy by people known as belonging to the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.

Al-Obeidi was the third member of Saddam's defense team to be killed since the trial began Oct. 19. His colleagues said the brutal slaying was an attempt to intimidate the defense before it begins final arguments July 10, a process that will take about 10 days.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the trial would continue.


Despite the killing, Saddam's lawyers said they would forge ahead with their closing arguments.

An al-Qaida-led insurgent group said in a Web statement that it has decided to kill four Russian Embassy workers kidnapped in Baghdad on June 3. It said Moscow failed to meet its demands for a full withdrawal of troops from Chechnya.

The statement by the Mujahedeen Shura Council came a day after the same group claimed responsibility for killing two U.S. soldiers whose bodies were found south of Baghdad.

At least one and possibly both of the soldiers was beheaded, a U.S. military official in Washington said Wednesday. The official requested anonymity because the final report on the bodies' conditions has not been formally released.