Dunford: Military option for North Korea not 'unimaginable'

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested that Americans must be prepared for the possibility of a military confrontation with North Korea, whose nuclear program he deemed an urgent threat, Politico reports.

"Many people have talked about military options with words like 'unimaginable,'" Dunford said. "I would probably shift that slightly and say it would be horrific, and it would be a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes, and I mean anyone who's been alive since World War II has never seen the loss of life that could occur if there's a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

"But as I've told my counterparts, both friend and foe," he added, "it is not unimaginable to have military options to respond to North Korean nuclear capability. What's unimaginable to me is allowing a capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado. That's unimaginable to me. So my job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn't happen."