Exclusive US Offers to Sell Command Bunker to S. Korea
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The top American military officer here has proposed that South Korea buy a key U.S. underground command bunker on the outskirts of Seoul, as his troops will move to an area south of the Han River, relinquishing wartime operational control to Korean commanders, a source at the Combined Forces Command (CFC) said Sunday.
CFC Commander Gen. Walter Sharp, who concurrently heads the 28,000-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), made the proposal to South Korea during the Key Resolve command-post exercise that ended Thursday, the source told The Korea Times.
The Ministry of National Defense is reviewing the offer but has yet to make a final decision, a ministry official said.
The bunker, known as CP Tango (Command Post Theater, Air, Naval, Ground Operations), is the main command and control center from which U.S. military leaders would direct any combat against North Korea.
Sharp's proposal reflects the firm U.S. intent to shift its roles and missions to air- and naval-centric support after the South Korean military takes over operational control of its troops during wartime in 2012 as scheduled, despite calls to delay the transition, the CFC source said.
Conservatives in South Korea and some U.S. experts have argued the command transfer should be delayed not to weaken the U.S. security commitment on the Korean Peninsula amid the lingering threat posed by North Korea's missile and nuclear programs.
Following the transition of the wartime command authority, the USFK wants South Korean troops to assume most theater operations against North Korea, while it would be more focused on regional threats in the long term, he said.
``Tango is the most important facility for the defense of South Korea because it would be the nerve center for U.S.-Korea operations, should a war with North Korea ever occur,'' the source said.
``The potential transfer of the bunker to South Korea, whether or not the USFK will sell it or give it without cost, has big implications for the U.S. military's change of status on the Korean Peninsula.''
The USFK would be then dependent on the Tactical Air Control Center (TACC) at Osan Air Base, Gyeonggi Province, for theater command-and-control operations, while establishing a new underground control center at Camp Humphreys in nearby Pyeongtaek, he said.
After Seoul and Washington agreed on the transfer of wartime operational control in 2007, the USFK had asked South Korea to pay for the takeover or use of the bunker, the source said. However, the Korean authorities had not been positive about the offer, arguing they could use the ``B-1'' command bunker in Seoul, should war break out.
``I'm not sure what the Korean military's decision will be,'' he noted. ``Truth be told, the bunker is still too high-tech to close down.''
Tango was in the media spotlight in March 2005 when then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visited it during a regional tour.
The granite bunker, which is estimated to cost at least 200-300 billion won, is reputed to be able to withstand even a nuclear blast as well as survive any biological and chemical attack.
The center of about 30,000 square meters features up-to-date computer, information-gathering and communications equipment, according to CFC officials.
The bunker has a war room where top military commanders can receive battlefield situations around the clock and hold video teleconferences through huge monitor screens and banks of computers, they said.
Commanders in the war room could immediately detect any provocative move by the North, such as the test-firing of missiles, with the help of the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) controlling information being received from U.S. satellites and spy planes, such as U-2s.
SCIF could also allow U.S. military commanders to communicate with U.S. government officials from the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Information Agency, National Security Agency, Department of Defense and the White House.