Washington ? The Pentagon is considering new deployments in the Pacific Ocean to signal North Korea that the United States remains capable of blunting an attack in Korea despite its focus on possible war in Iraq.

No decision has been made, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is considering options including sending an aircraft carrier to the waters off the Korean peninsula and adding bombers in Guam, officials said Monday.

The United States has 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea, where it has maintained a force since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce. Tension between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea’s nuclear program has been rising since October, however, and officials said they want to deter the North from provocations during any war to remove Saddam Hussein as Iraq’s president.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush still believes the North Korean standoff can be resolved peacefully. “That doesn’t mean the United States won’t have contingencies and make certain those contingencies are viable,” Fleischer told reporters.

Rumsfeld held a 45-minute meeting Monday at the Pentagon with Chyung Dai-chul, a special envoy for the South Korean president-elect, Roh Moo-hyun, who takes office Feb. 25. Chyung is on a weeklong Washington visit, to include talks today with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

American officials disclosed Friday that spy satellites had detected what appeared to be trucks moving spent fuel rods from a North Korean nuclear facility. It was viewed as a possible sign Kim Jong Il’s government might be preparing to process the rods to produce nuclear weapons.