Washington, D.C. (NBCNC) – The U.S. is “totally prepared” for “devastating” military action against North Korea should that be necessary, President Trump has declared.
North Korea, which has already tested long-range missiles and powerful nuclear bombs, could combine them to make a weapon that could strike the continental United States soon, according to the military’s top brass.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said, “Whether it’s three months or six months or eighteen months, it is soon and we ought to conduct ourselves as though it is just a matter of time or a matter of very short time before North Korea has that capability.”
President Trump in the Rose Garden Tuesday stressed how far he’s willing to go to prevent that from happening.
“We are totally prepared for the second option, not a preferred option but if we take that option, it will be devastating. I can tell you that. Devastating for North Korea, that’s called the ‘military option,’” the president said.
North Korea said those kinds of threats and the president’s repeated insults of their leader Kim Jong Un amount to an American declaration of war.
The administration insists it hasn’t done that, but it is upping the ante gathering more intelligence about North Korea and increasing its missile defense systems.
Meanwhile, the family of American student Otto Warmbier, who was detained in north Korea and later died, spoke out in an interview.
Warmbier was convicted of trying to steal a propaganda poster North Korea and sentenced to hard labor.
His parents said when the North Koreans finally handed their son back to the U.S. last spring he was on death’s door.
North Korea has said Warmbier became ill while in custody and that he was released on “humanitarian grounds.”
Warmbier’s parents say when they first saw their son he had a feeding tube in, he was shaking violently.
They’re calling on the Trump administration to add North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
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