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here's another version from The Korea Times

US to Dispatch 690,000 Troops to Korea in Crisis

By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter
About 690,000 U.S. troops along with 2,000 military aircraft and 160 warships would be mobilized to defend South Korea in the event of a war on the Korean peninsula, according to a document released by the Ministry of National Defense Friday.

The Defense White Paper said the U.S.' contingency plan included the deployment of 70 percent of its Marine Corps. The remaining forces consisted of 50 percent of the U.S. Air Force and 40 percent of the U.S. Navy.

The planned increase in forces is mainly designed to provide strikes against North Korean field artillery located near the inter-Korean border in the early stage of any war and ensure sea and air superiority with several aircraft carriers, the paper said.

The reinforcement of U.S. forces was labeled a ``strategic maneuver,'' under which troops and military equipment could be transported from or to anywhere in the world, it said.

As part of the U.S.' plan to streamline its troops into a more mobile force better able to cope with new security threats like terrorism, the U.S. will remove 12,500, or one-third, of its current troops from South Korea by 2008.

The document said that North Korea has strengthened its missile and artillery forces in an apparent bid to increase striking power with the smallest financial outlay.

North Korea increased its field guns by 1,000 to 13,500 over the past four years and has established a missile department in its Defense Ministry, the paper said.

About 70 percent of the 1-million-strong North Korean ground forces are stationed south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line, which enables Pyongyang to launch a surprise attack without any redeployment.

The paper also said that North Korea is believed to have developed one or two nuclear weapons from weapons-grade plutonium extracted before the International Atomic Energy Agency conducted an inspection of nuclear facilities in North Korea in 1992.

The controversial designation of ``main enemy'' for North Korea was deleted from the Defense White Paper in what appears to be part of Seoul's efforts to reconcile with Pyongyang. North Korea was described as a ``direct military threat'' instead.

North Korea's conventional weapons, weapons of mass destruction and its forward deployment of troops were all mentioned as direct military threats to South Korea in the paper.

The ministry said it decided to remove main enemy from the official defense document due to the special and dual nature of inter-Korean relations.

The paper was published after years of postponement due to a dispute over the term of reference for North Korea.

The ministry began labeling North Korea ``main enemy'' in the paper in 1995, a year after a North Korean official threatened to turn Seoul into ``a sea of fire.''

North Korea was simply referred to as an enemy in the White Paper until 1994.

yoonwonsup@koreatimes.co.kr

02-04-2005 16:57

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200502/kt2005020416552010440.htm

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