In a National Assembly audit session of the Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff, Uri Party lawmaker Lee Jong-in asked Yoon about South Korea's military capabilities to respond to North Korea's underground artillery. Yoon said in the Iraq War, the U.S. was able to destroy Iraqi artillery in 6 to 7 minutes, and using that technology, he said North Korea's artillery would be destroyed within 6 to 11 minutes after its pieces came out of their caves.

This is the first time a high-ranking military official has officially mentioned the response time required by the Korean military to respond to the North Korean artillery threat. This response would be possible by coordinating allied intelligence gathering methods like U.S. spy satellites, U.S. U-2s, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and means of attack like multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), fighter aircraft and self-propelled artillery.

About how serious a threat was posed by North Korean artillery, however, Joint Chief of Staff chairman Gen. Kim Jong-hwan said, "I want to say once again that it poses a severe threat to the metropolitan region." Contrarily, Minister Yoon responded cautiously, saying, "Because the international community would raise human rights issues and it would fulfill the conditions of a war crime under international law if many Seoul residents were killed in a North Korean artillery strike, it would require a strategic decision to make innocent city residents targets."

Meanwhile, Rep. Park Jin, citing material from the British defense magazine Jane’s International Defense Review, claimed the 636 pieces of North Korean artillery deployed all along the DMZ could fire off 25,000 rounds an hour and reduce one-third of the Seoul metropolitan area, and even if combined Korea-U.S. forces were to respond promptly, thousands of shells would fall on Seoul regardless.

(Yu Yong-won bemil@chosun.com )