Besieged military struggles to contain fallout from border security failure

The defense ministry sought Tuesday to dispel suspicions the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) lied about a North Korean soldier's defection across the heavily armed border, blaming incorrect reports from a subordinate for the wrong statement.

The North's soldier scaled rows of barbed wire fences on the eastern sector of the inter-Korean border and defected to the South on Oct. 2, in what is considered one of South Korea's biggest border security failures in recent years.

Six days after the incident, JCS chairman Jung Seung-jo disclosed the defection during a parliamentary audit, and said the soldier was taken into custody after being detected by a surveillance camera.

It was later revealed that the South Korean guards were unaware of the defector until he arrived at their barracks building and knocked on the door and the surveillance camera was not recording at the time.

On Monday, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin issued a public apology and announced strong disciplinary measures against a total of 14 senior Army officers, including five general-grade officers.

Moreover, the JCS chairman was later revealed to have been given an oral briefing a day after the defection, that the North Korean soldier was taken into custody only after he knocked on the door of the front-line unit.

That has raised suspicions that the chairman lied during the Oct. 8 parliamentary meeting.

On Tuesday, the defense ministry said Jung made his initial remark based on official reporting by the JCS chief of operations who told his boss on six different occasions that the defector was captured by a surveillance camera because the defector's confession had not been verified at the time.

"The JCS chairman had no other option but to believe what the JCS chief of operations said as that was his main duty," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said during a briefing.

The three-star general in charge of JCS operations will face disciplinary action for falsely briefing the JCS chief on the Oct. 2 incident, the ministry said.

News reports said President Lee Myung-bak may consider replacing the JCS chief but aides said that move is unlikely as it could send a wrong message to North Korea as Lee nears the end of his term in office.

"Going into too much detail makes military commanders pay excessive attention to small things," a senior presidential official said. "We also have to keep in mind military operations concerning North Korea."

Rep. Kim Kwang-jin of the main opposition Democratic United Party, who first questioned the defection in the parliamentary audit, also said he does not consider the JCS chairman's remarks to be "perjury."

"We have to take into consideration flaws in the communication system and other factors. Calls for his replacement for perjury itself does not make sense," Kim told Yonhap News by phone. "If (the JCS chief) said the situation had not yet clearly concluded at the time, there was no misunderstanding." (Yonhap)