[THS] Analysts question Korea torpedo incident

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25568.htm


Analysts question Korea torpedo incident

By Jeff Stein

May 28, 2010 "Washington Post" -- How is it that a submarine of a fifth-rate power
was able to penetrate a U.S.-South Korean naval exercise and sink a ship that was
designed for anti-submarine warfare?

Such questions are being fueled by suggestions in the South Korean and Japanese
media that the naval exercise was intended to provoke the North to attack. The
resulting public outcry in the South, according to this analysis, would bolster support
for a conservative government in Seoul that is opposed to reconciliation efforts.

As fanciful as it may sound to Western ears, the case that Operation Foal Eagle was
designed to provoke the North has been underscored by constant references in
regional media to charts showing the location where the ship was sunk -- in waters
close to, and claimed by, North Korea.

"Baengnyeong Island is only 20 kilometers from North Korea in an area that the
North claims as its maritime territory, except for the South Korean territorial sea
around the island,” Japanese journalist Tanaka Sakai wrote in the left-leaning Asia-
Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.

He called the sinking of the ship “an enigma.”

"The Cheonan was a patrol boat whose mission was to survey with radar and sonar
the enemy’s submarines, torpedoes, and aircraft ... " Sakai wrote.

    "If North Korean submarines and torpedoes were approaching, the Cheonan
should have been able to sense it quickly and take measures to counterattack or
evade. Moreover, on the day the Cheonan sank, US and ROK military exercises were
under way, so it could be anticipated that North Korean submarines would move
south to conduct surveillance. It is hard to imagine that the Cheonan sonar forces
were not on alert."

The liberal Hankyoreh newspaper in Seoul echoed a similar theme.

    “A joint South Korean-U.S. naval exercise involving several Aegis warships was
underway at the time, and the Cheonan was a patrol combat corvette (PCC) that
specialized in anti-submarine warfare. The question remains whether it would be
possible for a North Korean submarine to infiltrate the maritime cordon at a time
when security reached its tightest level and without detection by the Cheonan,” it
reported.

American spy satellites were also monitoring the exercise, “so the U.S. would have
known that North Korean submarines had left their ports on a mission,” adds Scott
Snyder, director of Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation.

“The route the North Korean submarines apparently took was from the East Sea, not
directly from the North across the NLL,” or Northern Limit Line, the sea boundary
unilaterally imposed by Seoul. “Essentially, they went the roundabout way and came
at the ROK vessel from behind,” he said.

But Bruce Klingner, chief of the CIA’s Korea Branch in the 1990s, said “anti-
submarine operations are far more difficult than is often realized.

“Beyond the obvious difficulty in tracking something that is designed to operate
quietly, navies are confronted with natural acoustical phenomena as shallow, noisy
littoral waters and layers of water salinity which can provide cover for submarines.”

Moreover, says Terence Roehrig, a professor at the Naval War College, “the Cheonan
was an older Pohang-class corvette and not one of these [newer] ships.”

“Satellite and communications coverage of sub bases can tell when subs have left
base
” adds Bruce Bechtol, Jr., professor of international relations at the Marine
Corps Command and Staff College. “It cannot tell locations of submarines once they
are at sea -- unless they surface or communicate.”

“A mini-submarine like the type that is assessed to have penetrated the NLL is
designed specifically for covert maneuvering in shallow waters like those that exist off
of the west coast of the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

    “It appears from the reports that [the South Korean Ministry of Defense] has
released that a submarine departed port off the west coast of North Korea,
accompanied by a support vessel. The submarine perhaps could have come fairly
close to the NLL using diesel power, then switched to battery power, which is much
quieter,” Bechtol added. “The submarine could have then slipped past the NLL at an
appropriate time and waited for a ROK ship to approach.”

Suspicions about what happened, Bechtol said, are unwarranted.

“The fact of the matter is, a submarine did infiltrate into South Korean waters -- and
they have done so in the past fairly frequently," he said.

"It is their mission.”

© Copyright 1996-2010 The Washington Post Company
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.azWJZZsfEE&pos=9

North Korea Warns UN to Be Wary of False Evidence of Sinking

By Bomi Lim and Chris Dolmetsch

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea warned the United Nations to be wary of
evidence that it said falsely accuses the country of torpedoing a South Korean
warship, likening the case to the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The Security Council risks being “misused” by the U.S. if it takes up the North Korea
case, the country’s foreign ministry said last night in a statement carried by the
official Korean Central News Agency. “The U.S. is seriously mistaken if it thinks it can
occupy the Korean Peninsula just as it did Iraq with sheer lies,” the statement said.

The U.S. is joining South Korea in blaming North Korea for the March 26 incident that
killed 46 sailors to “put China into an awkward position and keep hold on Japan and
South Korea as its servants,” KCNA said.

The statement came as the leaders of South Korea, China and Japan are set to start
today a two-day trilateral summit on the South Korean resort island of Jeju. Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao avoided any reference yesterday to North Korea’s role in the
sinking of the warship in his first public comments since arriving in Seoul for talks
with President Lee Myung Bak.

South Korea wants China to accept findings that the North fired a torpedo that sank
the 1,200-ton Cheonan. China holds veto powers in the UN Security Council, and its
acquiescence will be needed to win a resolution condemning the North. Wen
reiterated yesterday that China was still considering the evidence and said it won’t
protect anyone found to be responsible for the attack.

China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and main political ally.

Joint Probe

China proposed to the U.S. a joint investigation with North and South Korea into the
sinking, the Seoul-based Hankyoreh newspaper reported, citing a diplomat it didn’t
name. Russia plans to send its own team to South Korea for an independent
assessment of the incident, which a South Korea-led team involving experts from the
U.S., U.K., Australia and Sweden blamed on North Korea in a May 20 announcement
in Seoul.

Russia also has veto power in the Security Council and participates in the stalled six-
party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program that is hosted by China and
also includes the U.S., Japan and South Korea.

North Korean Major General Pak Rim Su said in Pyongyang yesterday that the
international investigation into the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan was biased
because it was supervised by the South Korean military and included the U.S., KCNA
said in a separate report.

“The noisy racket of confrontation with the DPRK kicked up by the group over the
sinking of Cheonan is nothing but an act of precipitating its self-destruction as it is an
undisguised declaration of war against the DPRK,” Pak said, according to KCNA.
DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is North Korea’s official name.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30 at bloomberg.net;
Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch at bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: May 29, 2010 00:45 EDT