Request seen as part of shift toward handover of command
U.S. Congress has passed a law requiring the Defense and State Departments to submit a joint report to look at expanding the role of United Nations forces in South Korea. Under the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed on June 22 and goes into effect fiscal year 2007, the Senate’s Armed Services Committee requested a joint report by the Defense and State Departments to be delivered to both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House of Representatives International Relations Committee within 180 days. The act, which has yet to be looked at by the U.S. House of Representatives, asked for a discussion of whether United Nations Command (UNC) member nations might be persuaded to deploy peacetime military forces to South Korea. The report would also look at how military and political requirements for U.S. forces in South Korea might be affected if UNC forces increase their presence on the peninsula, as well as whether UNC members’ additional military contributions would help the current diplomatic situation. The move comes out of U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Burwell B. Bell’s remarks about strengthening the role of the UNC on the peninsula. Some military experts say the U.S. may have considered the transfer of operational control in light of the pending dismantlement of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), expected to happen in about five or six years.Gen. Bell’s remarks about the proposed reshuffling of command in South Korea stirred up controversy. The CFC and South Korean National Defense Ministry’s initial response was that the U.S. had merely asked member nations of the UNC to expand their staff in South Korea, and that there would be no change in the function and role of the UNC. This most recent request by U.S. Congress seems to contradict those statements. In response to the U.S. congressional request, several UNC nations including England, Australia, and New Zealand said that they would expand the number of staff officers in South Korea. "The [additional] staff officers will take charge of affairs including management of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and the UNC will continue to strengthen its staff to efficiently perform these tasks," a South Korean military official said. The UNC was formed in July 1950, shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War, and transferred operational control to the South Korea-U.S. CFC in November 1978. The CFC has since been engaged in maintaining the armistice signed at the end of the war, with UNC troops under its command. North Korea has demanded that the UNC be dismantled and the armistice be replaced with a peace treaty.
