Admiral: Hawaii could be at risk

The top U.S. military officer in the Pacific said Wednesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “clearly in a position to threaten Hawaii today” with a ballistic missile attack and that the Pentagon is considering adding new ballistic missile interceptors and defensive radar there to counter that possibility.

Navy Adm. Harry Harris, the chief of U.S. Pacific Command, told the House Armed Services Committee there already are “sufficient” ballistic missile interceptors protecting the United States at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But he added there is a possibility that not every missile would be stopped in an attack. Hawaii, about 2,500 miles to California’s southwest, could benefit from having new equipment to protect itself, he said.

“I believe that our ballistic missile architecture is sufficient to protect Hawaii today, but it can be overwhelmed,” Harris said. “Somewhere, we would have to make a decision about which missiles to take out, and that’s a hard decision.”

The comments are a new sign of U.S. concerns about the threat Pyongyang poses, and came ahead of an unusual White House briefing Wednesday afternoon about North Korea held by the Trump administration for U.S. senators.

Harris said that the United States wants to bring the North Korean leader “to his senses, but not to his knees” about his efforts to build ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

In recent days, the Navy has positioned the USS Carl Vinson strike group within a two-hour flight to North Korea for U.S. strike aircraft, Harris said. The Navy also sent the USS Michigan, an Ohio-class guided-missile submarine,

to South Korea, and will have a defensive missile system known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) operational in South Korea within days.

The admiral said that if North Korea were to launch an attack against U.S. ships off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, they would be able to defend themselves.

Harris, who repeatedly has questioned China’s military expansion in the South China Sea, said Wednesday that China has recently been helpful in pressuring North Korea to change its development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. But he added that he is still concerned about China’s operations in the South China Sea, and that the United States should be able to criticize China while simultaneously showing gratitude for help against North Korea.

“Despite subsequent Chinese assurances that they would not militarize these bases, today they now have facilities that support long-range weapons emplacements, fighter aircraft hangers, radar towers and barracks for troops,” Harris said. “China’s militarization of South China Sea is real.”

Earlier in the day, North Korea claimed more attention on Capitol Hill, when Harris took personal responsibility for a series of White House and Pentagon misstatements that led to global confusion about the location of an aircraft carrier strike group.

“That’s my fault,” Harris told the House Armed Services Committee. “I’ll take the hit for that.”

The embarrassing episode began April 8 when the Navy announced that the Carl Vinson was being diverted north from Singapore as a show of force during rising tensions with North Korea. The carrier group instead conducted exercises in the Indian Ocean for a week and was headed in the wrong direction last weekend.

It is now east of Okinawa, or about 1,000 miles southeast of North Korea, Harris said.