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Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon on Friday told the Kwanhun Club, an organization of veteran journalists, ¡°When we withdraw wartime operational control of our troops from the U.S., it will contribute to creating a positive environment where we can discuss a peace framework on the peninsula¡± with North Korea. That, he said, would pull the rug out from Pyongyang¡¯s ¡°persistent propaganda that it cannot negotiate a peace framework with a South Korea that doesn¡¯t even exercise operational control of its troops.¡± The same assertion is made in a report on the issue Cheong Wa Dae provides on its website.
Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung told the National Assembly a fortnight ago that the North's assertion that it cannot discuss a peace framework and disarmament if the South has no operational control of its forces "has a reason. It's necessary to understand that reality." That shows what is behind the government¡¯s plan to take over sole exercise of operational control: the perception that the North could then no longer refuse to recognize South Korea as the dialogue partner on security issues.
If we exercise operational control of our troops, Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command will be automatically dismantled, and with it the CFC's deterrence of the North, whose integrity, promptness and efficiency have been assessed as the best in the world. Yet the defense and foreign ministers, even as they tear down the country's security framework, boast this is good for inter-Korean dialogue.
The Kim Dae-jung administration, in launching the Sunshine Policy, at least had the courtesy to pretend it was anchored in firm security. "The issue of withdrawing operational command was never raised lest it should burden the Korea-U.S. alliance," Kim's national security advisor said. But this government acts as if things will be just dandy even if our security is ruined, in the same spirit that informed President Roh Moo-hyun¡¯s remark during his candidacy that if only South-North Korea relations improve, the rest will take care of itself. Once the handover of operational control gets underway, do they intend to accept all other North Korean demands? Will they scrap the National Security Law, redraw the Northern Limit Line, the sea extension of the armistice line, and throw out the U.S. Forces Korea?
Then there is Seo Joo-seok, the senior presidential secretary for national security. "Since the U.S. idea of transferring operational control in 2009 is also reasonable, we'll negotiate flexibly," Seo said Friday. The president said early last month Korea could exercise sole troop control ¡°even now.¡± At about the same time, the defense minister in a letter asked his U.S. counterpart not to hand it over until 2012, but was told to take it back in 2009. That is why the presidential secretary is talking about a ¡°compromise.¡±
We should exercise sole control of our troops when they are capable of overwhelming a threat from the North, and no sooner. But in terms of that delicate judgment, the supreme commander of the armed forces, Roh Moo-hyun, says 2007 would be fine; the defense minister says not before 2012; and the presidential security advisor says 2012 is correct but 2009 is also nice. They are talking about national security as if they were haggling in the market.
The only sane government organization is the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. In a report to the Foreign Ministry late last year, it said North Korea is still superior to South Korea militarily. ¡°Though it is short of capability to unify the country through a total war, North Korea has the capability and means to use its military strength politically through limited provocations," it added. That is tantamount to saying the president, defense minister and presidential security advisor are lying when they say our deterrence of the North will remain intact even if we solely exercise operational control between now and 2012.
An artificial deadline for the handover risks creating the impression in the U.S. that the alliance is useless, the report says. In the absence of assured trust, the handover ¡°could be regarded as a virtual dissolution of the alliance." The report accurately predicts the present situation, where the U.S. is thinking about withdrawing its forces from Korea, shifting from an assessment that the North Korean military threat is clear, present and enduring to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld¡¯s remark this week that there isn¡¯t much of a threat at all. But the presidential security advisor assures us the USFK will stay and the Korea-U.S. alliance will not crack.
Forty-eight million South Koreans have entrusted their country to a bunch of lunatics who play football with its security.
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