Missile Intercepts Satellite

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon says a U.S. missile smashed a disabled spy satellite that was headed for Earth and the military is tracking the debris as it falls over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon press conference Thursday that he couldn't rule out that hazardous material would fall to the earth.

But he says so far officials have tracked "nothing larger than a football."

Cartwright says officials also "have a high degree of confidence" — though are not ready to say for sure — that the missile launched from a Navy ship near Hawaii struck the satellite's fuel tank. Officials said the toxic hydrazine fuel in the tank would have caused a hazard had it fallen to earth.