-Caveat Lector-
From: Honolulu Advertiser
Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Associated Press
Military to cut bases in South Korea
WASHINGTON - The U.S. military could start closing and consolidating bases
in South Korea as early as next year, handing back to the country a
substantial amount of land the United States has been using for decades,
the Pentagon said yesterday.
Officials gave no details. But the military newspaper Stars & Stripes
reported that a plan in the final stages of negotiations calls for cutting
from 41 to 26 the number of installations used by forces on the southern
half of the divided peninsula.
Closing what it called "15 major installations" would mean returning some
30,000 acres of land over the next 10 years, the newspaper reported in its
Pacific edition yesterday. In turn, the United States would be given some
600 acres of land on which to move some troops and equipment.
A plan for consolidation was ordered by former Defense Secretary William
Cohen in September. In a joint communique after meeting with his South
Korean counterpart, Cohen said he had authorized U.S. forces in the country
to begin work on an outline for consolidating installations and returning
"a substantial amount" of land.
Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said he couldn't confirm numbers
in the Stars & Stripes story, which quoted Col. Robert E. Durbin, assistant
deputy chief of staff for the forces in Korea.
"I don't think anybody can predict what the final number will be," Quigley
said. "But the hope is that at the end of the day you're going to have a
more efficient structuring of the U.S. forces that are stationed in South
Korea."
He stressed that the plan does not include a cut in U.S. troop strength.
U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea since the 1950-53 war
between communist North Korea and the now-democratic South. Some 37,000
Americans remain to help keep peace between the two sides, which signed an
armistice but no peace treaty after the conflict.
Asked if the closings could begin next year, Quigley said, "You could see
some interim realignments done, but there's no stipulation that some
percentage must be done by a certain point in time."
Durbin was quoted as saying it was too soon to name the 15 installations to
be closed under what Cohen called the "Land Partnership Plan." He told the
newspaper an agreement was close and could come as early as this fall.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin discussed the plan with
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a visit to Washington last
month, Stars & Stripes said.
It also quoted Durbin as saying that since the war the United States has
returned more than 75 percent of the land it was granted at that time to
operate on.
Durbin said that to consolidate, the United States must acquire some land
to build facilities for people displaced in base closings.
The plan also calls for the United States to invest $1.1 billion over the
next decade to turn its remaining installations into "planned communities"
with improved living and working conditions for U.S. military members and
civilians.
It would build or renovate barracks, motor pools, family housing, post or
base exchanges, gyms, schools, medical and dental clinics and other
facilities, and upgrade water, electric and other utilities, the newspaper
said.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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