General B.B. Bell, the top U.S. military commander on the Korean Peninsula, revealed his thoughts Sunday on the return of wartime military control to South Korea with unprecedented clarity.
Bell, who heads the Combined Forces Command (CFC), told the Stars and Stripes newspaper that the two allies plan to complete a "road map" by October for Seoul's take-over of its wartime command.
South Korea, which fought with the help of U.S-led Western forces against North Korea and China during the 1950-53 Korean War, handed over control of its military to the U.S. at that time. In 1994, South Korea regained peacetime control of its military from the U.S., but the wartime command remains in Washington's hands.
Regaining its control of its military in wartime is a core policy goal of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who has advocated moving further away from Washington's influence.
The Defense Ministry said last week that the U.S. had proposed returning the command by 2010.
Bell said Washington and Seoul hope to have "a macro-level road map" for independent command here approved at an October security consultative meeting in Washington D.C.
"So we're conducting a range of meetings ... in hopes of laying out these road maps," the commander said in an interview posted on the military newspaper's Web site. "I don't know if we'll make it ... but we're working on it." The difficulty is neither drafting a plan nor saying that the nations have agreed to a deadline for setting up independent commands, Bell said.
"Rather, what's more difficult, is enacting the plan and meeting the deadline," the commander said, without mentioning when the deadline would be.
South Korea and the U.S. have yet to launch formal talks to discuss the idea.
The commander also indicated that the CFC will not be disbanded until both the U.S. and South Korea have an "independent war-fighting command-and-control capability."
"You wouldn't want to take apart CFC, or our other combined constructs, until you have prepared the independent national joint-force war-fighting headquarters for both nations," he said.
His remarks mark a sharp contrast with observers' expectations that the CFC will be disbanded before such independent military control bodies are launched, a key step toward Seoul's planned take-over of wartime operational control of its forces.
A key question, Bell said, is determining how U.S. forces can support an independent South Korean command that would "bear the principal war-fighting burden," the paper quoted the commander as saying.
"We are not even close to defining all that," he said, signaling that lengthy discussions on the matter lie ahead.
With regard to the North's missile program, Bell said he was more worried about its short-and middle-range missiles than its long-range ones.
"Obviously, I'm not too worried about Taepodongs landing around here. I'm worried about short-range missiles, Scud and Nodong missiles that are built for theater deployment," he said.
Earlier this month, North Korea test-launched a barrage of seven missiles including one intercontinental Taepodong-2 missile and six Scuds and Nodongs.
The Koreas are still technically at war as the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a formal peace treaty.
Some 30,000 American soldiers are stationed here to help South Korea's 600,000-strong military confront North Korea's 1.1 million troops. in the event of armed conflict.
The idea of returning the wartime military command to South Korea coincides with the U.S.'s plan to reorganize its forces in the region. Under the restructuring plan, the number of U.S. forces here will be cut to around 24,500 by 2008.
Seoul, July 23 (Yonhap News)
U.S. sets October deadline for road map on transfer of wartime command to Seoul |
