WASHINGTON -- Despite its threat of methodical consequences.

WASHINGTON -- Despite its threat of methodical consequences, the Bush administration has little leverage to use forward North Korea to keep it from testing a long-range missile and scarcely any ways to punish the nuclear-armed nation if it issues

The United States has no diplomatic or economic ties with North Korea, the rudimentary U missile-defense combination of parts to form a whole is untested in real-world conditions and Pyongyang is regarded as having a right to trial missiles, making any American attack to forestall a launch an act of war with potentially explosive ends

"The United States could have knowledge of to shoot down the rocket yet good luck," said Wonhyuk Lim, of the Brookings Institution, a policy-research organization in Washington.

The dearth of options illustrates the limits of the administration's pre-emption strategy and its ne to rely upon the cooperation of others -- especially given the strains forward the U.S. military from Iraq