S.Korea-bound stealths make stop in Hawaii
From the National Desk
Published 3/12/2003 4:38 PM
HONOLULU, March 12 (UPI) -- A flight of radar-evading F-117 stealth fighters was scheduled to take off from Hawaii Wednesday and continue a journey to South Korea to take part in annual military exercises that North Korea has angrily denounced as a provocation and dress rehearsal for war.
The New Mexico-based fighters that landed at Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu Tuesday will be the first F-117s to take part in a segment of Operation Foal Eagle, an annual joint exercise held by American and South Korean forces to practice their response to a theoretical attack by North Korean commandos.
The stealth fighters' ability to be nearly invisible to radar gives the United States a first-strike capability that has not been integrated into previous Foal Eagle exercises and comes as tensions on the Korean Peninsula are on the rise.
The Pentagon has recently downplayed the political importance of Foal Eagle, which is designed to test the response to an attack on South Korea by North Korean raiders operating off submarines or small boats.
The exercise will also help the often-solitary F-117 play a role in battles involving other aircraft and ground forces, an Air Force spokeswoman at Hickam said.
"What we found is that we needed to train with other aircraft and other branches to make sure that we can integrate," Maj. Tina Barber-Matthew told the Honolulu Advertiser. "The 117 doesn't fight a war by itself."
Foal Eagle began last week and runs through early April. North Korea has declared that the exercises are being held to prepare for an invasion of the North.
The overall level of friction between the United States and North Korea has been on the rise this year since Pyongyang announced it was restarting a uranium processing plant. The United States dispatched B-1 and B-52 bombers to Guam this month while North Korea has recently tested an anti-ship missile in the Sea of Japan and confronted an Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane 150 miles off the Korean coast.
Ralph Cossa, president of Honolulu's Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Advertiser that he expected to see more potentially dangerous encounters between North Korea and the United States as Kim Jong Il continues "to push buttons."
He said: "We were lucky, I think, that nobody was shot down ... because the only defenses that that plane has is the ability to get out of there quickly."
He added: "I would certainly be talking with the 5th Air Force in Japan about bringing combat air patrol aircraft up when those things fly."
Meanwhile, Hawaii also played host to another major U.S. asset this week as the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its battle group pulled into Pearl Harbor en route to the Persian Gulf. The Hawaii-based cruiser USS Chosin will sail with the Nimitz next week when it resumes the voyage it began when it left San Diego March 3.
(Reported by Hil Anderson in Los Angeles and Pam Hess in Washington)Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International