The state of Hawaii must reconsider how it issues warnings of an imminent attack on its citizens, and it should link its efforts more closely with the United State military, Sen. Tom Cotton said Sunday about a false missile alarm that terrified the state's residents this weekend.
"I think it's appropriate that we give the government of Hawaii a little bit longer to get to the actual facts and release those, figure out what went wrong here," the Arkansas Republican told CBS's "Face the Nation" program Sunday. "If it really is the case that a single employee could hit the wrong button, that system needs to be redesigned."
On Saturday, an emergency alert was sent to cellphones statewide just before 8:10 a.m. and not rescinded for nearly 40 minutes. Hawaii's governor later blamed the incident on an employee pushing a wrong button at the state's emergency management agency.
Cotton noted that the United States' dealings with North Korea over the past 25 years has put it on a path to having nuclear weapons, and it's important not to let the country's capabilities grow.
Sen. Cotton said a robust missile defense system is critical.. "It's important that we pass the government funding bill that funds missile defense systems both at the take-off phase on the Korean peninsula, but also when they're at the peak and atmosphere we have on the West Coast."
Once a missile would get close to its target, there are only a limited number of options,, Cotton added, so "that's why missile defense is critical."
Meanwhile, Cotton said he does believe it's appropriate that state emergency management systems issue alerts on missile strikes, in addition to alerts on natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and so on.
In Hawaii, the military never detected that there was a launch, said Cotton, and that points to the state needing to reconsider how its emergency alert system works."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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