U.S. Requests a 5,000-strong “Stabilization Force”

On November 8 and 9, the government re-examined the details of the plan to dispatch troops to Iraq, as the second joint government on-the-spot inspection team and the Korea-U.S. military cooperation committee arrived home respectively in turn. The government has decided to re-examine the plan of sending troops to Iraq, through holding a National Security Council (NSC) and security-related minister’s meeting by this week, and will talk over this matter with Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, who is scheduled to visit Korea on November 16 in order to participate in the annual Korea-U.S. Security Council Meeting (SCM, November 17-18).

“In the meeting held from November 5 and 6 at Washington D.C., there appeared to be major differences between the U.S. and Korea on the viewpoint of arranging troop dispatch to Iraq. It is necessary to re-examine the details of the plan,” remarked the government spokesperson on November 9, further adding, “As a result of the second inspection, the public security of the local area in Iraq seems very unstable. We will consider a plan which sets down the duty and type of the Korean troops as the ‘Civil Affairs Force,’ one which will support the normal living of the locals and will secure the safety of our soldiers but will also take in some of the U.S.’ requests and increase the specific gravity of the combat soldiers in the dispatch.”

In the discussion between Korea and the U.S., Korea’s consultation team suggested 3,000 non-combat soldiers including engineers and support units, but the U.S. asked for 5,000 “stabilization force” soldiers consisting of two regiments which may take charge of securing the public order in Iraq.

According to this request, the Korean consultation team passed on its hope to the U.S. administration that they would nail down the scale of Korean troops and the timing of dispatch by the end of this month, and also submit a bill of consent to the congress, in order to follow it through until the end of the periodical congress (Dec. 9), reported Reuters, quoting the remarks of the person in authority, on November 9.

Reuters also passed on that the George W. Bush administration had asked Korea for one combat division, 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers, which can substitute for the U.S. 101st Air Strike Division, currently in charge of the Mosul area in northern Iraq. However, the Korean government has denied the report as being “groundless.” On the other hand, Kim Man-bok, the chief of the NSC’s intelligence team, who carried out inspection activities in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Arvill, Mosul, and Nashriya, arrived home on the morning of November 9, and said, “Since early October, the resistance forces have been well organized and have progressed. In the Suni triangular area, the public disturbance has been riled up so much. And in Mosul, the chiefs of the local police stations collectively estimated that the security level of six out of the entire eight areas as stable, but we are still a little bit uncertain amid facing the upcoming troop dispatch.”

Young-Sik Kim spear@donga.com