[La Lydia]

I guess they are going to wait until North Korea is poised to take out Seattle before doing anything about this. "We are not prepared to do anything about it."

[BGHater]

Sounds like a good way to get more money for DoD.

[Momaw Nadon]

Well get prepared already then!

[Obadiah]

But, hey, maybe if they take out Seattle they’ll like us more and we’ll be more highly esteemed in world view!!

[null and void]

Oddly enough, Japan is prepared...

[Unassuaged]

Gates is hardly a dove, I guess he has his reasons....

[headstamp 2]

We can’t or we won’t?

[elpadre]

DOD is not prepared to take out the missile militarily is nonsense.

I will betcha DOD is not prepared to take out the missile for political reasons

[tatsinfla]

well i don’t understand why we have to wait for them to actually launch. if we deem there is a threat and we know where this missle is on the ground i would say a cruise missle or 2 would take it out with no problem. and if not a cruise i am sure we have other means.

[stuartcr]

The last time N Korea shot missiles, one landed on Japanese soil, and no one did anything then.

[yoe]

We have a problem here: Gates says "I would say we're not prepared to do anything about it."

Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said the U.S. is "fully prepared" to shoot down the missile.

The Obama's will be traveling in EU next week - North Korea will launch and no action will be taken...imho.

[Las Vegas Ron]

"I think if we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it," Gates said. "But I don't think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point."

WTH??

[Freeport]

Saying we can’t stop the launch is BS. Of course we can stop it; one B-2, one 2000 lb. JADAM, end of missile and launch pad.

The PROBLEM is dealing with the war that starts.

[Cicero]

Gates is a loyal servant. He has a record of doing what the Boss wants. So what he did under Bush will be different from what he does under Obama.

This statement is clearly weasel worded. It leaves open the possibility that we lack to technology to intercept the missile. But it’s not exactly a lie, because it also can mean that we have made a political decision to do nothing.

In other words, he is willing to risk giving our enemies the perception that the US is technologically incapable of responding, in order to shield Obama from the perception that he has made a political decision to do nothing.

Not even if it hits Hawaii, his supposed birthplace, which has been assiduously hiding his true birth certificate.

Hey! Maybe if NK takes out Hawaii, it will solve the birth certificate problem for once and all! That’s it!

[DivaDelMar]

Parse the statement. He didn’t say “We can’t do anything about it.”

This is all just BS posturing. See www.mda.mil for the laundry list of successful intercepts.

Newt is full of it.