It has been revealed that the United States researched scenarios in which it used 30 nuclear weapons in the event of a North Korean invasion of South Korea. It also conducted training exercises in which aircraft dropped mock nuclear warheads in preparation for a worst-case emergency on the Korean Peninsula. In particular, it was revealed the U.S. learned of North Korea¡¯s nuclear development program through satellite surveillance in 1982, 3 years before North Korea joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Up till now, it was not known that the U.S. had been aware of facilities in North Korea where nuclear weapons development could take place since the 1980s. These shocking facts were reported Sunday in a special feature by Japan¡¯s Kyodo News, quoting secret government and CIA documents declassified in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act at the request of a U.S. anti-nuclear environmental protection group and declassified documents obtained by civilian research institutes.
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A satellite image of Yongbyon, North Korea, where a nuclear reactor is suspected to have resumed operations, in breach of the Geneva agreement./Chosun Ilbo DB
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In a 1978 document on the weakness of the North Korean military obtained by the civilian think-tank Nautilus Institute, a scenario is drawn in which the U.S. used 30 nuclear weapons in the event of a North Korean invasion of South Korea. A civilian institute researched the scenario at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. President George Bush declared the total withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from overseas U.S. military instillations in 1991, and from that year, the U.S. military removed all its nuclear weapons from South Korea. The Kyodo report analyzed that the U.S. maintained its nuclear deterrent on the Korean Peninsula even after the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from South Korea. The current U.S. administration of George W. Bush has modified the nuclear regime and is pushing the development of nuclear warheads capable of penetrating underground, aiming at North Korea¡¯s subterranean nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, according to documents obtained in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act by Hans M. Kristensen, a consultant with the anti-nuclear environmental protection group Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. military ran training exercises involving 24 F-15Es, an AWACs and KC135 midair refueling aircraft in which the aircraft dropped mock nuclear warheads. The training exercise presupposed the delivery of nuclear warheads by aircraft from the U.S. mainland to North Korea. The aircraft took off from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina and dropped their ordinance, mock BDU38 warheads, on the U.S. Air Force bombing range at Avon Park, Florida, 900km to the south. The exercise was conducted as part of OPLAN 5027, the U.S. war plan for an emergency on the Korean Peninsula, and response drills to the use of chemical weapons by North Korea were also conducted.
OPLAN 5027, as the U.S. military¡¯s operational war plan for North Korea, is focused on the U.S. Pacific Command and is updated every two years. The most recent war plan is known to have added attacks on North Korea Special Forces units and naval vessels into operational planning. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is said to have distributed a secret memo to high-ranking officials calling for regime change in North Korea. In 1993-1994, then-U.S. President considered launching ¡°surgical strikes¡± against the North Korean nuclear facility at Yongbyon, but plans for such strike were cancelled because simulations revealed that attacks could yield very dangerous results, such as 52,000 U.S. and 490,000 South Korean military casualties within 90 days.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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