WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today he has ordered the U.S. military to take defensive measures should North Korea attempt to fire a ballistic missile toward Hawaii.

“We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile to the west in the direction of Hawaii,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.
Gates said he has sent the military’s ground-based mobile missile system to Hawaii, and positioned a radar system nearby. Together the systems theoretically could detect and shoot down a North Korean missile if it came to that.
“Without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say ... we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect Americans and American territory,” Gates said.
Gates' comments came in response to a report out of Japan that said North Korea may fire its most advanced ballistic missile toward Hawaii around July 4.
North Korea test-fired a long-range missile on July 4 three years ago, but it failed seconds after liftoff and fell into the ocean.
While the Yomiuri Shimbun speculated the latest Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, it said the missile would not be able to hit Hawaii’s main islands, which are about 4,500 miles from the Korean peninsula.
A spokesman for the Japanese Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report. South Korea’s Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service — the country’s main spy agency — said they could not confirm it.
A new missile launch — though not expected to threaten U.S. territory — would be a brazen slap in the face of the international community, which punished North Korea with new U.N. sanctions for conducting a second nuclear test on May 25 in defiance of a U.N. ban.
North Korea spurned the U.N. Security Council resolution with threats of war and pledges to expand its nuclear bomb-making program.
The missile now being readied in the North is believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles, and would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, the Yomiuri newspaper said.
It cited an analysis by Japan’s Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.
Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs are centerpieces of the regime’s catalog of weapons of mass destruction.
But the impoverished nation, which has put most of its scarce resources into boosting its military capabilities under its “army-first” policy, also has a large chemical arsenal, as well as capabilities to produce biological weapons.
Today, an international security think tank warned that these weapons are no less serious a threat to the region than the North’s nuclear arsenal.
The independent International Crisis Group said the North is believed to have between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, phosgene, blood agents and sarin. These weapons can be delivered with ballistic missiles and long-range artillery and are “sufficient to inflict massive civilian casualties on South Korea.”
“If progress is made on rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, there could be opportunities to construct a cooperative diplomatic solution for chemical weapons and the suspected biological weapons program,” the think tank said in a report.
It also called on the U.S. to engage the North in dialogue to defuse the nuclear crisis, saying “diplomacy is the least bad option.” It said Washington should be prepared to send a high-level special envoy to Pyongyang to resolve the tension.
South Korea’s annual defense report, published early this year, said that in addition to chemical weapons, the North is believed to be capable of producing biological weapons with agents like anthrax and smallpox.