Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the Pentagon had at one time considered attempting to overthrow the North Korean government.

In a recently published memoir, Rumsfeld said that he thought, during the 2002 North Korean nuclear standoff, that although the chances were slim, the North Korean regime could be overthrown if pressured strongly.

However, he said that such a scenario was likely not to occur after the Pentagon was excluded from policies regarding the North in 2006.

The former Pentagon chief also said that Washington had considered intercepting the North’s Daepodong-two missile, launched in 2006, but decided not to after the missile launch ended up being a failure.