As North Korea rattles its nuclear saber and threatens to bomb the U.S. at "any moment," a nerve-jangling question hangs in the air: If North Korea did launch a nuclear-armed missile at an American city, could the Pentagon's stop it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — North Korea
is rattling its nuclear saber and threatening to bomb the U.S. at "any moment." And that raises a nerve-jangling question: If North Korea did launch a nuclear-armed missile at an American city, could the Pentagon's missile defenses shoot it down? Officials say they are confident it would work as advertised, but the Pentagon acknowledges potential gaps that North Korea or others might be able to exploit in the years ahead, if not immediately. One such vulnerability involves what are known as "countermeasures" -- decoys carried aboard long-range offensive missiles to fool a U.S. interceptor missile into hitting the wrong target