Posted on: Tuesday, June 8, 2004
12,500 U.S. troops to leave South Korea
Advertiser News Services
SEOUL, South Korea — The United States plans to withdraw a third of its 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea before the end of 2005 as part of the most significant realignment of U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula in half a century, South Korean officials said yesterday.
The withdrawal underscores a broader move by the Pentagon to transform troops stationed at traditional, fixed bases into more mobile forces for rapid global deployments. Defense officials also have proposed pulling two armored Army divisions out of Germany and repositioning some fighter aircraft and Navy command staff in Europe to make it easier to deploy forces to the Middle East, Central Asia and other potential hot spots.
In the case of South Korea, the planned move would mark the largest U.S. troop withdrawal from the peninsula since the Korean War, while shifting a greater burden of defense to the South Koreans themselves. A U.S. delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless, informed the South Koreans on Sunday night of the Pentagon's intention to withdraw the troops, South Korean officials said.
The Pentagon has announced plans to redeploy 3,600 troops this summer from South Korea to Iraq. The new proposal greatly expands the number of troops to be withdrawn — involving about 12,500 by December 2005, Kim Sook, head of the Foreign Ministry's North America bureau, said in Seoul yesterday.
It was not immediately clear which U.S. forces would be going — or where. A senior U.S. military officer familiar with the planning, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in an interview that many such details have yet to be worked out.
"Much of the planning has involved thinking in terms of what military capabilities will still be needed in Korea, not the specific soldiers or units," the officer said.
Moreover, the pullout from Korea could end up being largely offset by a buildup of U.S. forces elsewhere in the Pacific — notably in Guam, where Pentagon officials envision stationing more aircraft and submarines, and in Hawai'i, where an aircraft carrier may be moved from the Mainland.
The withdrawal would be the first major troop cut on the Korean Peninsula since the early 1990s, when 7,000 U.S. troops were taken out. Kim said officials at the South Korean National Security Council, Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry would review the proposal before giving a response. "We'll formulate a position and then notify the United States," he said.
The U.S. decision immediately touched off divergent reactions in South Korea. Members of President Roh Moo-hyun's allied Uri Party indicated they would not protest the decision, but legislators from the more conservative opposition Grand National Party, which has accused Roh of warming to North Korea while alienating the United States, expressed dismay.
"In a situation where the nuclear issue in the North and Pyongyang's conventional weapons capabilities still loom as a threat to our security, the drastic reduction of troops would only harm the security of the Korean Peninsula," leading GNP legislator Park Jin told South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. South Korea's semi-official Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying the government in Seoul was advocating a more gradual pullout of the forces by 2013.
The U.S. proposal comes as U.S. relations with the South Korean government are being tested by South Korea's policy of rapprochement with the communist government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il despite its threats to become a renegade nuclear power. Military officials in Seoul and Pyongyang recently agreed in landmark talks to adopt a standard radio frequency and signaling system for their navies and to exchange data on illegal fishing. They also decided to set up a hotline between the two sides to improve communication.
The two countries will also end propaganda efforts along their border — via loudspeakers and billboards — by mid-August while opening roads across the Demilitarized Zone, including one leading to a new industrial park in North Korea that has been financed by the South.
The United States and South Korea are engaged in separate talks aimed at moving U.S. troops away from the Demilitarized Zone, the most heavily militarized border in the world. Those talks, however, broke off today in discord.
Neither side could agree on how much land South Korea should provide for U.S. forces repositioned within the country, said Lt. Gen. Kwon Ahn-do, the main policy coordinator for South Korea's Defense Ministry.
"The two sides only exchanged their basic positions and failed to narrow differences," he said.
The U.S. troops along the border have long been considered a "tripwire" to ensure U.S. intervention if the North attacks. Many in the South also see them as a healthy restraint on the United States, believing Washington won't take military action to provoke the North when U.S. troops are in harm's way on the border.
The Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this report.
