By Jun Ji-hye
Korean officials and experts will visit the U.S. air base in Osan, Gyeonggi Province, on Aug. 8 for a joint investigation with United States Forces Korea (USFK) into the mistaken delivery of live anthrax samples to its laboratory.
The Ministry of National Defense said Wednesday the South Korea-U.S. joint task force team will conduct an inspection at the air base to check how the samples were brought in, and whether the U.S. properly handled and destroyed them.
The decision was made during the team’s first meeting earlier in the day at the ministry, led by Maj. Gen. Jang Kyung-soo, director general of the ministry’s policy planning bureau, and Maj. Gen. Robert F. Hedelund, USFK assistant chief of staff for policy and plans.
The allies set up the team on July 11 to investigate what happened in South Korea when Washington accidently sent live anthrax samples to 86 facilities across the U.S. and seven other countries, including Korea, Japan and Germany, from a chemical weapons testing site in a desolate stretch of desert in Utah.
During the inspection, the air base officers who participated in the anthrax testing at the time of the accident in May will give a demonstration of how they examined and destroyed the samples, the ministry said.
“The joint team will check the whole process of handing the samples, as well as whether the initial response was conducted in accordance with safety regulations at home and abroad,” the ministry said.
Officials of the two sides are planning to report the results of their inspection to their respective team leaders, Jang and Hedelund, around Aug. 11.
But the joint investigation may face rough going as the U.S. is unlikely to disclose all the experiment-related information, while Korean officials want as much information as possible to be released.
According to USFK, 22 military and civilian personnel were exposed to the lethal bacteria in May, but none showed signs of infection.
The U.S. Defense Department report released last week said the shipment to Korea was an “inexcusable mistake.”
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