N. Korea threat likely to keep Hawai'i troops here
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
War with Iraq seems inevitable but Hawai'i-based forces, including more than 15,000 25th Infantry Division (Light) soldiers and 8,000 Marines, are likely to stay right here as reserve forces for the growing possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula.
There are between 100,000 and 150,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East, and tanks, planes and ships are strategically arrayed for attack. Military experts say a war with Iraq could begin in weeks.
But defense analysts say troops stationed in Hawai'i are already where they are needed most.
"I don't see them being involved in the follow-on force or for the post-Saddam government," said Patrick
Garrett, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, which monitors military programs. "I think they're much more useful where they're at — which is waiting for a war on the Korean Peninsula to occur."
Alarm bells have been ringing over North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship, and Pyongyang has declared that any sanctions for its breach of nonproliferation agreements would be construed as a "declaration of war."
U.S. intelligence officials last week told Congress that North Korea has an untested ballistic missile capable of reaching Hawai'i and the West Coast. Japan warned it would launch a pre-emptive strike if it had evidence Pyongyang was planning a missile attack.
Speaking at the East-West Center in Honolulu on Friday, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry said North Korea poses an "imminent danger" to the world because it has the capability of producing five to six nuclear weapons by the summer.
A failure to secure a freeze "could lead to a nuclear arms race in the Pacific region," said Perry, who urged direct talks with North Korea. Secretary of State Colin Powell instead called for a regional settlement.
Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies in Honolulu, said a Korea contingency is a primary focus for the Army's 25th Infantry Division (Light) at Schofield Barracks.
But there haven't been any large-scale troop movements from Hawai'i either to the Middle East or the South Korea region, reflecting a cautious military approach to the unpredictable North.
The 25th Division has "about 100 soldiers deployed to various locations around the world in support of the war against terrorism," and does not have any full units deployed, officials at Schofield Barracks said.
About 250 Marines from the 1st Radio Battalion have received orders to the Middle East, along with 40 reservists from the 4th Force Reconnaissance Company.
"Right now, we don't have any orders to deploy any more Marines from Hawai'i," said base spokesman Staff Sgt. Robert Carlson. "But there are a lot of Marines here who are ready, and are constantly training to be ready if they are called."
Three Marine infantry battalions are based in Hawai'i, but one is always forward-deployed to Okinawa.
There hasn't been the kind of deployment from Hawai'i like the one that emptied Kane'ohe Bay of Marines in 1990 for the first Gulf War.
About 7,600 Kane'ohe Marines and 500 Schofield soldiers and reservists were deployed during Operation Desert Storm, and Marines from Task Force Taro were the first to cross the Iraqi-mined Kuwait border. But that war involved 550,000 troops, far more than the force envisioned this time for Iraq.
"The forces that are in (Hawai'i) are force-packaged for the Korean Peninsula," Garrett said, "and I think they don't really have the type of training you need for fighting in a desert environment."
Hawai'i-based forces did not play a large role in the war in Afghanistan, either.
With Korea heating up, Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, recently requested two dozen B-1 and B-52 bombers for Guam, and eight F-15E fighter bombers and a number of U-2 and other reconnaissance aircraft for Japan and South Korea.
Fargo last week told a group of business leaders in Honolulu that "the stakes are high because this is a North Korean army of a million people, with thousands of artillery rounds within reach of Seoul, the capital, obviously a city of over 10 million people. These warheads have chemical capability. ... It's important for us to ensure that we maintain the right deterrent posture."
The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its battle group are being sent to the region to replace the USS Kitty Hawk, which was ordered to the Persian Gulf.
"I think this is all a matter of sending messages that the other guy understands," said Michael Pavkovic, director of the diplomacy and military studies program at Hawai'i Pacific University.
There are about 37,000 military personnel, excluding Japan and Okinawa, in the U.S. Forces Korea area of responsibility. Garrett believes the strength is sufficient to initially counter a North Korean attack.
Cossa, a retired Air Force colonel who worked for at least four commanders-in-chief from the 1970s to the 1990s, said, "I would imagine there are a lot of people up at the 25th Infantry Division who are dusting off war plans right now."
As a routine matter of course, military commands don't talk about specific planning.
Cossa, who is headed to South Korea this week for the inauguration of President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, said he doesn't think the North Koreans would launch an attack, "because if they did, it would result in the removal of North Korea from the face of the Earth. Their whole game is to try to survive. You don't do that by committing suicide."
