Former defense secretary William Perry urged the United States to strike the North Korean launch site if Pyongyang does not take steps to stop the launch, insisting Washington act rather than allow a "mortal threat" to develop.

"I think, at this stage, we are addressing the issue in the proper fashion," Cheney said in an interview with CNN television.

"And I think, obviously, if you're going to launch a strike at another nation, you'd better be prepared to not just fire one shot," he said.

Pentagon officials earlier warned North Korea the United States would "seek to impose some cost" if it went ahead with the missile launch and signaled US readiness to use a missile defense system to protect Americans.

Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said a North Korean missile launch "would be a provocation and a dangerous action which would have to have some consequences."

He told lawmakers "there would be a reaction, and it would be a mistake for North Korea to do it."

The United States and its allies in Asia have repeatedly warned North Korea against launching a long-range missile. Russia Thursday expressed its concerns about a launch to the North Korean ambassador to Moscow.

Preparations for the launch of a multi-stage Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles) have been underway for several weeks at Musudanri on the remote northeast coast of North Korea.

South Korean officials said a launch was not imminent, and the communist North has made no substantial moves for several days towards a launch.

A senior US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US military would use any capability it has to protect the American people if a missile is launched at the United States.

"Obviously the United States military would use any capabilities it had if it could protect the American people," he said

However, he said the US missile defense system would not necessarily be used if a missile launched by North Korea was headed into open ocean.

"If there is a test in which a missile goes up, for example, and it is headed into the ocean or whatever, would that be necessarily a trigger for our defensive systems? No, it wouldn't be," said the official.

His comments were the clearest official indication yet that the United States has activated its missile defense system.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post co-authored with Ashton Carter, a former Pentagon official, Perry said "intervening before mortal threats to US security can develop is surely a prudent policy."

"Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched.

"This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead," Perry and Carter said.

They argued that the US missile defense system is unproven against a North Korean threat and has performed unevenly in tests.

"A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have," they said.

Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, said President George W. Bush wanted to solve the crisis diplomatically and called on North Korea to respect a self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests.

He said that a missile launch would be "disruptive" to stalled six-party talks aimed at convincing Pyongyang to drop its nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea has boycotted the talks since November.

"The solution is for North Korea to decide to respect its own moratorium, not to test this missile, come back to the six-party talks, and let's talk about how to implement the agreement for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that was reached last September," said Hadley, who was traveling with Bush in Hungary.

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