NORTHEAST ASIA PEACE AND SECURITY NETWORK ***** SPECIAL REPORT ***** March 9, 2000 The following is the complete text of the testimony of General Thomas A. Schwartz, Commander, US Forces Korea, before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee. Schwartz discussed the DPRK threat, the US-ROK military alliance, and funding needs for US forces in the ROK. ------------------------------- Text: Korea Forces Commander Mar. 7 on Korean Peninsula Security 08 March 2000 STATEMENT OF GENERAL THOMAS A. SCHWARTZ COMMANDER IN CHIEF UNITED NATIONS COMMAND/COMBINED FORCES COMMAND AND COMMANDER, UNITED STATES FORCES KOREA BEFORE THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 7 MARCH 2000 Mister Chairman and distinguished committee members, I am honored to appear before you for the first time as Commander in Chief, United Nations Command, Republic of Korea -United States Combined Forces Command; and Commander, United States Forces Korea. I want to first express my deep gratitude to Congress for the consistent support you provided our forces over the years. The 35,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, and 3,000 Department of Defense civilians of United States Forces Korea benefit from your support which enables us to accomplish our vital mission. I welcome this opportunity to present the current security situation in the Korean Theater of Operations. I will provide you four major categories of information: 1) The North Korean Threat, 2) The Republic of Korea and United States Alliance, 3) Command Vision and Missions, and 4) Command Priorities. THE NORTH KOREAN THREAT. As we prepare to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War, North Korea remains the major threat to stability and security in northeast Asia and is the country most likely to involve the United States in a large-scale war. A decade of steep economic decline has not deterred the North's leaders from allocating precious resources to improving their military forces. North Korean military force improvements conducted over the past year clearly illustrate an emphasis on being prepared for war, no matter the cost. Their dogged adherence to a "military first" policy, when viewed against the backdrop of a nation on the brink of complete economic and social collapse, indicates the true priorities of the Kim Regime and its enduring hostility towards the Republic of Korea. To update you on this threat I will describe North Korea's leadership, economy, military forces, and force improvements. Leadership: Less than six years after the death of his father, Kim Chong Il has consolidated power and is firmly in control of North Korea. The leadership continues to focus on its three fundamental themes -- regime survival, reunification, and achieving status as a "great and powerful nation." Lacking his father's charisma and revolutionary credentials, the North Korean leader relies upon military and security forces to maintain his chokehold on the citizenry. Kim Chong Il sustains regime support by resourcing key areas at the expense of lower priority sectors of the economy and society. The result is neglect of entire segments of society selected by geography, age, and political reliability. Meanwhile, his inner circle, insulated from the economic and social trauma impacting the lives of ordinary citizens, remains an exclusive, pampered, cult-like group 34 in which relations by blood or marriage, revolutionary ties, and loyalty are the primary prerequisites for power. Economy: With no serious internal threats to regime survival, the leadership's most pressing domestic problem is an economy in decline for the tenth consecutive year, yet they show no intentions to reform. The three major components of the North's economic infrastructure -- power generation and distribution, communications, and transportation -- are failing. Shortages of food, energy, and foreign exchange cripple industry and trade. The underlying cause of the failing economy is the regime's mismanagement of national resources. The regime allows minor deviations from its centralized policies such as open markets outside government control and limited private agricultural activities. But, these are only begrudging adjustments to failure of the central rationing system and not indicative of reform. Until they initiate the major reforms required to create a healthy economic environment, the North will continue to rely on outside help to avert complete economic collapse -- and as a result become even more of an aid-based economy. If this trend continues, we must consider that the North Korean economy could break down completely, precipitating social chaos and threatening the existence of the regime itself. We should anticipate a flood of refuges, humanitarian needs, and the potential for chaos, military coup, or the devastation of civil war. We continue to update our contingency plan to deal with these possibilities. Military Forces: The "Military First" orientation has always been the heart and soul of the Kim Regime. It provides the only conceivable means by which the regime can survive and achieve its ultimate security through reunification. The military continues to grow in both conventional and asymmetrical forces with increasing emphasis on the latter. The military provides deterrence, defense, and a massive offensive threat, as well as leverage in international negotiations. The army is much more than just a military organization; it is North Korea's largest employer, purchaser, and consumer, the central unifying structure in the country, and the source of power for the regime. Pyongyang's military goal is to reunify the peninsula by force. North Korea's fundamental war-fighting strategy mandates achievement of surprise, prosecution of a short and violent war, prevention of major United States reinforcement of the peninsula, and negation of the Republic of Korea's mobilization. The North Korean Armed Forces today are the fifth largest in the world. The ground forces, numbering one million active duty soldiers, provide the bulk of the North's offensive war-fighting capability and are the world's third largest army. They are supported by an air force of over 1,600 aircraft and a navy of more than 800 ships. Over 6 million reserves augment the active duty personnel. Seventy percent of their active force, to include 700,000 troops, 8,000 artillery systems, and 2,000 tanks, is garrisoned within 100 miles of the Demilitarized Zone. Much of this force is protected by underground facilities, including over four thousand underground facilities in the forward area alone. From their current locations these forces can attack with minimal preparations. North Korea fields an artillery force of over 12,000 self- propelled and towed weapon systems. Without moving any artillery pieces, the North could sustain up to 500,000 rounds an hour against Combined Forces Command defenses for several hours. The artillery force includes 500 long-range systems deployed over the past decade. The proximity of these long-range systems to the Demilitarized Zone threatens all of Seoul with devastating attacks. Realizing they cannot match Combined Forces Command's technologically advanced war-fighting capabilities, the North's leadership focuses on developing asymmetrical capabilities such as ballistic missiles, special operations forces, and weapons of mass destruction designed to preclude alliance force options and offset our conventional military superiority. The North's asymmetric forces are formidable, heavily funded, and cause for concern. The progress of the North's ballistic missile program indicates it remains a top priority. Their ballistic missile inventory now includes over 500 SCUDs of various types. They continue to produce and deploy medium-range No Dongs capable of striking United States bases in Japan. Pyongyang is developing multi-stage missiles with the goal of fielding systems capable of striking the Continental United States. They tested the 2,000-kilometer range Taepo Dong 1 and continue work on the 5,000 plus kilometer Taepo-Dong-2. Pyongyang is one of the world's largest missile proliferators and sells its missiles and technology to anyone with hard currency. North Korea's Special Operations Forces are the largest in the world. They consist of over 100,000 elite personnel and are significant force multipliers providing the capability to simultaneously attack both our forward and rear forces. North Korea possesses weapons of mass destruction. A large number of North Korean chemical weapons threatens both our military forces and civilian population centers. We assess North Korea is self-sufficient in the production of chemical components for first generation chemical agents. They have produced munitions stockpiles estimated at up to 5,000 metric tons of several types of chemical agents, including nerve, choking, blister, and blood. We assess that North Korea has the capability to develop, produce, and weaponize biological warfare agents, to include bacterial spores causing anthrax and smallpox and the bacteria causing the plague and cholera. While North Korea denies possession of nuclear weapons and has frozen its nuclear program at Yongbyon, we remain concerned the North could revive a weapons production program. The Perry process provides a diplomatic roadmap for addressing that threat as well as the missile threat. Force Improvements: North Korea continues to improve its military. In the last 12 months, North Korea has done more to arrest a decline in readiness and to improve its military capability than in the last five years combined. Highlighting these enhancements is an ambitious program to improve ground forces capabilities. A key component of this initiative involves the deployment of large numbers of long-range 240mm multiple rocket launcher systems and 170mm self-propelled guns to hardened sites located near the Demilitarized Zone. Other force improvements include emplacement of anti-tank barriers in the forward area, establishment of combat positions along major routes between Pyongyang and the Demilitarized Zone, repositioning of key units, beefing up of coastal defense forces in the forward area, construction of missile support facilities, preparations for extended range missile testing, and procurement of fighter aircraft. Applying lessons from our operations in Europe and Southwest Asia, the North Koreans have modified key facility defenses, dispersed forces, and improved an already impressive camouflage, concealment, and deception effort. Summer and fall 1999 training levels were extremely high. Key activities during the ongoing winter training cycle are at record levels and demonstrate a concerted effort to improve readiness. Production of military equipment, to include missiles, aircraft, submarines, and artillery systems also continues. We remain keenly concerned and closely monitor the North Korean threat. The situation on peninsula remains volatile, unpredictable, and dangerous. The regime is committed to its "Military First" policy and its strategy of brinkmanship. Kim Chong Il will clearly sacrifice popular welfare to continue his "Military First" policy. We are now in a critical period as the North's conventional capabilities are more difficult to maintain and its asymmetrical forces- weapons of mass destruction, special operations forces, ballistic missiles -- are still rising. Increasingly dependent on outside aid, the North Korean government continues to resist the major reform needed to revive its economy. THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA AND UNITED STATES ALLIANCE The alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States has never been stronger. Our continuing cooperation and understanding is a success story in many ways, and institutionalized in our Mutual Defense Treaty and in our Security Consultative and Military Committee Meetings. Four alliance areas deserve particular note. These are the South Korean political and economic evolution, military readiness, interoperability, and defense burdensharing. Political and Economic Evolution: This is a time of unprecedented political and economic change in the Republic of Korea. Two years after the first-ever election of an opposition presidential candidate, President Kim Dae Jung remains fully committed to the alliance and to close coordination with the United States on policies toward North Korea. President Kim is also committed to an engagement policy of economic cooperation and reconciliation designed to induce the Pyongyang regime to abandon hostility toward the Republic. This policy has popular support and has created limited business activity and cultural exchange between North and South. Inter-Korean trade, although only in the $350 million range, is up about sixty percent over last year. The Republic of Korea has undergone a substantial recovery from the economic crisis that hit the region two years ago. Real gross domestic product growth is back to more than six percent and inflation is low. United States exports to Korea rose 42 percent in the first four months of 1999 after a significant decline the previous year. The economic future continues to look bright. Military Readiness: I have no doubt that the military forces of the Republic of Korea are a trained and ready partner in Combined Forces Command. Even a quick look at what the Republic of Korea provides to the alliance is indicative of its commitment. Every day, along the entire 155 mile long Demilitarized Zone, the South Korean Army mans 100 percent of the front line corps. During Armistice, or at the beginning of a limited warning attack by the north, the Republic provides 690,000 active duty personnel, which is 95 percent of all combat forces on the peninsula. Even at the peak of a United States commitment to the war plan, the Republic still would provide the majority of the fighting forces and mobilizes more than three million reservists. The Republic of Korea's military is a highly trained, professional force, committed to the defense of its homeland. Interoperability: In the third alliance area, interoperability, we have a mixed story of success but some work remains. A success story is the Global Command and Control System -- Korea, our premier combined command and control system. It is the Defense Department's largest and most complex combined, bilingual, command and control system and provides the world's most sophisticated, near real-time common operational picture. In 1990 there were only fifty system workstations. Today there are over 750. While this increase in interoperable command and control workstations represents a good news story, we must be aware that United States efforts to digitize and transform represent significant fiscal challenges to our allies around the world. This is true for South Korea too. United States forces' capabilities complement South Korea's capabilities on land, sea, and in the air. The South Korean government is making efforts to digitize key systems to increase their capabilities. We must continue to work with them as they select and purchase the systems most crucial to war-fighting effectiveness. However, we must also remember that most nations have neither the economic nor technological resources to keep up with our advances in military capabilities. We must ensure our war-fighting transformations include coalition interoperability. South Korea's overwhelming preference for American military equipment during their modernization also improves interoperability. In the last ten years, eighty percent of all Korean overseas procurement came from the United States. Foreign Military Sales figures for fiscal year 1999 rose to $511 million from $267 million in fiscal year 1998. Both are still below the pre-financial crisis figure of $854 million in 1997. We 11 expect an increase to the $700 million range this fiscal year. Recent purchases include the Multiple Launch Rocket System, a theater airborne intelligence collection system, AGM-142 precision guided air-to-ground missiles, AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, and a suite of weapon and electronic systems for their newest classes of destroyers. Additionally, the United States and Korea will extend the co- production program for the Korean KF-16 fighters by another twenty aircraft for a program total of one hundred forty aircraft. Decisions will be made within the next one to two years on the acquisition of several significant United States weapon systems such as the F-15E fighter, the AH-64 Apache Longbow attack helicopter, and the Patriot surface-to-air missile system. Defense Burden sharing: Finally, defense burden sharing is also a success story. Of the four burden sharing categories in the 1999 Report to Congress on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, South Korea has met Congressional goals in three- level of defense spending, outlays for foreign assistance, and provision of assets to multinational military activities. In the fourth category, cost sharing, the Republic of Korea paid $692 million out of $1.84 billion United States non-personnel stationing costs fiscal year 1999. This 38 percent contribution fell short of the 1999 goal of 62.5 percent, but Korea still provided a substantial contribution compared to other nations, when factoring differences in gross domestic product. In February 1999, the United States and Republic of Korea governments reached a new multi-year Special Measures Agreement covering 1999 through 2001. Under the agreement, Korea contributed approximately $333 million in 1999. With adjustments based on Korean economic growth and inflation, the contribution for 2000 rose to $391 million. A key piece of the Special Measures Agreement is Host Nation Funded Construction that increased from $120 million in 1999, to $132 million in 2000. Continued strengthening of the South Korean economy should create a similar increase to the 2001 contribution. A notable element of South Korea's burden sharing contribution is its military support to peacekeeping operations in East Timor. Deployed since October 1999, the infantry, engineer, and medical units, numbering 419 personnel, help bring peace to a troubled region. Americans should applaud the quick and significant commitment made by the South Korean government to support regional stability and democratic ideals. COMMAND VISION AND MISSIONS My vision is for Combined Forces Command to reflect the model alliance the United States has with the Republic of Korea. The command functions as a joint and combined "team of teams" consisting of our world-class Korean and American, active and reserve forces. This professional team of trained and ready forces maintains the armistice and guarantees freedom for the South Korean people. These Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines embody a winning spirit allowing them to fight and win at a moment's notice. We initiated Strategic Management plans for both Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea to attain this vision. Our number one mission is deterrence that we achieve through our presence, and readiness. Our presence on the peninsula counts! It has for fifty years and it will continue to be vital to the stability of the region. Combined Forces Command readiness remains the critical factor since the forward-deployed North Korean military is only twenty-six miles from Seoul. We achieve readiness through training and exercises. Our forces are trained and ready. Our exercises are the best in the world and must remain the best. I will address training and exercises in greater detail in a moment. COMMAND PRIORITIES Achieving our vision and accomplishing our missions require us to prioritize scarce resources. Our command priorities are 1) Combat Readiness, 2) Force Protection, 3) Force Development, and 4) Quality of Life. I will discuss each of these in detail followed by additional resource issues. Combat Readiness: Our number one command priority of Combat Readiness consists of the six key elements of planning, training, exercises, logistics, equipment, and personnel. Under planning, we continue to adjust and refine our wartime operations plans through our continuous review process. We update our plans to reflect the changing threat and Combined Forces Command's constantly evolving capabilities and operational concepts. The issue of Anti-Personnel Landmines impacts on planning. The Center for Army Analysis recently completed a study confirming the requirement for Anti-Personnel Landmines in the prosecution of the command's war plan. Let me be very clear here, these weapons, both the non-self destructing and self destructing types, are absolutely essential to defend the Republic of Korea. It is important to emphasize that use of Anti-Personnel Landmines in Korea is not indiscriminate, but tightly controlled. We are grateful that Congress repealed the Anti-Personnel Landmines Use Moratorium last year. While we sympathize with the intent of the Ottawa Convention, it is imperative to balance it against the military effectiveness required to successfully defend the Republic of Korea. Without the controlled employment of these essential tools we will incur significantly increased casualties and risk delaying the halt of the enemy north of Seoul. Another upgrade to the command's operations and concept plans is the development of a new annex that describes the political- military inter-agency coordination process for both Korean and American agencies during the execution of the plans. We will first develop this annex for our instability concept plan, followed by the war-fighting operations plans. The second major element of readiness is training. Our combined forces continue to remain trained and ready. However, all Service components continue to face training challenges. We need to reverse problems with our training areas, support our Korea Training Center Vision, and create realistic training for Military Operations in Urban Terrain. Our joint forces experience a lack of adequate training areas on the peninsula. The training area problem is a function of training areas being widely dispersed, often temporarily unavailable, and too small to support our modern weapon systems. Current training areas also suffer from sustained encroachment by nearby civilian urbanization, and safety concerns for these civilians have reduced the size and time available for required training. We have initiated a Land Campaign Plan that will clearly state our needs and provide the vision necessary to address this problem. This initiative will be a major effort, but the result can be reconfigured training areas that allow us to consolidate training and gain more exclusive land access. One good example of the challenges that lie ahead is the development of the new Inchon International Airport, scheduled to open in 2003. The proposed civilian airline routes of this new airport encroach on the airspace at Koon Ni Bombing Range, the primary United States range in Korea. Current Korean proposals will eliminate most flying into Koon Ni Range. Unless we develop an alternative, the loss of Koon Ni range will force our aircrews to train off-peninsula at a much higher cost. Our Land Campaign Plan must address this critical issue. Another long-term challenge that we must address is the support for our Korea Training Center Vision. We must match available land with the right technologies to efficiently use both. The Korea Training Center's current capabilities match those that existed at our National Training Center two decades ago. The Korea Training Center remains very manpower intensive due to the lack of instrumented technologies. Our goal is to fully instrument the facility with the Homestation Instrumentation System by fiscal year 2008. The Korea Training Center requires an average of $4.5 million per year through fiscal year 2007. The Department of the Army is currently working to fund the requirement for fiscal year 2001. To squeeze the most benefit out of every training minute, we must infuse new training technologies. In the near term, full funding of our Joint Exercise Program is critical to maintaining our current level of readiness. We need an additional $7 million annually for our Korea Battle Simulation Center that is the key element of our Joint Exercise Program. We can no longer continue to migrate Operations Tempo dollars to fund these readiness programs. Finally, Military Operations in Urban Terrain is a training imperative for all ground forces in Korea. Urbanization now dominates the landscape in South Korea. As a result, our ground forces will have to fight in this challenging urban environment. To do that, we need a place to train. As a new requirement, we need congressional funding support of $12.4 million for military construction of an Urban Terrain Center Training Facility that replicates the extreme challenge of fighting in cities that our forces will face in Korea. The third element of combat readiness is exercises. Both the content and timing of our combined and joint exercises posture the command to deter, defend, and win. Exercises are readiness. Because of the proximity of the threat, the complexity of fighting this major theater of war together with our Korean allies, and our high personnel turnover, we must maintain our three theater level exercises annually to maintain readiness to defeat a North Korean attack. Each of our three exercises is unique and focused on a different, essential component of the combined war fight. We are seriously concerned that any reduction in funding of our three joint exercises will significantly reduce our readiness and combined training. This is a combined fight and the only way we can train our combined forces is through those three critically important exercises. Please let me elaborate. ULCHI FOCUS LENS, our primary war-fighting command post exercise, is the largest computer-driven exercise in the world. It includes participation by the South Korean government, the United States Embassy in Seoul, the South Korean-United States Combined Forces Command's air, land, and sea forces and United States active and reserve component forces that deploy to the peninsula. This exercise introduces the challenges associated with noncombatant evacuation operations, theater ballistic missile defense operations, amphibious operations, and operations in the critical main battle area. ULCHI FOCUS LENS is our capstone exercise. The loss of this exercise would weaken readiness and deterrence, and hamper our combined forces training to fight and win. FOAL EAGLE, our only theater-level field training exercise, involves both rear area security operations and force-on-force training at the corps through battalion task force levels. This exercise trains our combined forces to defeat both the massed North Korean conventional forces and their asymmetric threats. Typically, over 600,000 South Korean personnel and 17,500 United States personnel participate. FOAL EAGLE includes large and small, light and mechanized, combined and joint force-on-force maneuver. It also includes a large airbase defense exercise, theater air-defense, special operations, and combined naval and amphibious operations. FOAL EAGLE is our key force-on-force exercise. It is the only Corps force-on-force exercise in the world and improves our tactical interoperability. The RECEPTION, STAGING, ONWARD MOVEMENT and INTEGRATION exercise focuses on South Korean mobilization and United States reinforcement of Korea. This exercise uses computer simulations and a scripted scenario to emphasize rear area operations, South Korean Mobilization, the flow of United States reinforcements into the theater of operations, and sustainment of those forces. This exercise is synchronized with other United States joint exercises such as POSITIVE FORCE and United States Transportation Command's TURBO CHALLENGE. Other training in this exercise includes Wartime Host Nation Support, Non-combatant Evacuation Operations, and protection of air and sea lanes. This exercise is our only means to work through the critical sustainment and logistical challenges of our complex combined war-fight. The TEAM SPIRIT exercises were initiated in 1976 and were conducted annually as a demonstration of inter-allied unity in the defense of South Korea until 1994. The TEAM SPIRIT field training exercise was a force-on-force maneuver exercise, which would include large reinforcements of the theater, and in particular the forward area. TEAM SPIRIT exercises have been suspended to promote inter-Korean relationships, but the option remains open to conduct the large- scale dramatic demonstration of South Korean and United States resolve to defend against North Korean aggression. The determination whether or not to conduct a TEAM SPIRIT exercise is an annual decision made through mutual agreement on the part of South Korea and the United States. Exercises are also prime opportunities for engaging our National Guard and Reserve forces. We are currently developing a plan to maximize the use of our Guard and Reserve forces in our war plans. We are excited about this initiative. Nevertheless, we must be careful that we do not over mission the Reserve Component. We will work closely with the Service components and Joint Forces Command. Finally, and most importantly, budget cutbacks have seriously impacted our exercise program. United States Forces Korea had to reduce its contribution to the combined exercise program by $2.0 million from fiscal year 1999 to 2000. We will maintain three major exercises, but we will have to sacrifice some realism and training quality. Again, we must monitor our cuts carefully because these exercises are not hypothetical- they are the exercising of real, "go to war" plans. Korea is the only theater in the world where real war plans drive all exercises. Any further cuts in exercise dollars will seriously impact our ability to fight and win. The fourth element of readiness is logistics. The tyranny of distance from the Continental United States military and industrial base underscores the criticality of strategic airlift and sealift as well as the essentiality of pre-positioning programs to reduce risk in the early stages of a conflict. We remain concerned by a two major theater of war scenario, where limitations of strategic airlift and sea lift assets slow the movement of forces and supplies to Korea. I fully support the continued modernization and maintenance of strategic en route infrastructure and the resources of our strategic deployment triad: 1) For airlift, this involves the ongoing acquisition of the C-17 and future efforts to improve the reliability of the C-5, as well as continued support of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet; 2) For sea lift, this includes completion of our Ready Reserve Force and Large, Medium Speed Roll-On, Roll-Off programs; and 3) For pre-positioning, this includes the maintenance and funding for the programs of the military Services. In the case of pre-positioning programs in Korea, there are shortfalls in preferred munitions, repair parts and replacement weapon systems I need to address. These pre-positioned logistics requirements support initial operations of theater missile defense, counterfire, and the air campaign. Further, these stocks are the initial sources of repair parts and combat loss replacements. Stockage of preferred munitions required for our campaign plan remain a concern. We must achieve an appropriate level of munitions for theater missile defense, counterfire, air interdiction and strategic attack. We would like more of these munitions stored on the peninsula because of short warning times. Significant shortages also exist in both ground system repair parts and replacement weapon systems. War reserve repair parts sustainment stocks are at only 8 percent fill. Equipment and end item sustainment stocks to replace combat losses are at 46 percent fill, however, there are no combat systems such as M1 tanks, M2 fighting vehicles, or M109 howitzers currently in these stocks. Action is underway to begin fill of the M1 tank sustainment requirement. In addition, the Department of the Army has funded $673 million over the next six years for war reserve secondary items worldwide. The fifth element of combat readiness- equipment- contains a number of important issues, but four merit particular note. These are command and control, the pre-positioned brigade set in Korea, ballistic missile warning, and airborne electronic warfare systems. We are most concerned about our command and control systems. We must protect and harden our command, control, communications, computers, and information infrastructure against the known North Korean artillery and special operations forces threat. We need to insert state-of-the-art technology and redundancy into our networks; we need spares and a coordinating organization that can reconstitute a damaged infrastructure; and we need to provide adequate computer network defense for our new Information Assurance program. We are initiating a major assessment of our key command and control facilities to identify our specific long- term needs. Near term, fiscal year 2001, we need an additional $35 million to cover these critical command and control requirements. My existing Global Command and Control System operating 21 costs alone requires $6 million of that $35 million total. This is critical funding for absolute "go to war" readiness. Also included in the $35 million total is a new concept we developed for Korea. Based on modern available technology, this concept, called the Consolidated Wide Area Network, can integrate separate smaller infrastructures into a single network providing additional redundancy and survivability. The Consolidated Wide Area Network is in the Program Objective Memorandum and I urge its funding. We are happy with the status of the pre-positioned brigade set in Korea, but must now exercise the set. After significant progress, the fill rate for the brigade set is 96 percent and continues to improve, and we brought the equipment up to Army maintenance and readiness standards. However, for the brigade set to be truly ready, we must institute an annual exercise program that will allow a unit to draw as much as a battalion- sized task force out of the set. This is similar to the brigade set program in Doha, Kuwait and the Marine Corps utilization of its Maritime Pre-positioned Squadron sets. Efforts are currently under way to calculate the cost of this exercise. We have taken steps to increase the ballistic missile warning time of a North Korean attack through improvements in data warning and distribution of warning throughout the peninsula. Additionally, upgrades to our voice warning capabilities allow timely and accurate dissemination of theater ballistic missile warning. Space-based detection and tracking systems continue to advance and will improve our chance of successful missile engagement. One example is the Space Based Infrared Radar System which supports our long-term ballistic missile detection needs. This system, 22 projected for 2004, will provide better warning capability and quicker detection than the current Defense Support Program satellites. Even in this age of stealth technology, requirements remain for forward-deployed airborne electronic warfare systems. As demonstrated in Kosovo, electronic warfare and jamming systems, such as the EA-6B aircraft, are critical to all aspects of our campaign. Our limited warning time and lack of stealth assets stationed in theater mandate assets able to provide these key electronic suppression capabilities. The final element of combat readiness is personnel. Our main challenge is the turnover of our people. Duty in Korea for most of our people involves a 365 day-a-year forward deployed status. Ninety one percent of them serve in Korea one year without their families and our personnel turnover rate is about 95 percent each year. We soften the blow with robust training, exercises, and mentoring of our new arrivals. Nevertheless, in a theater of 95 percent turnover per year, the small size of our joint headquarters is a concern. Our staff has been downsizing since 1990 and the fiscal year 2000 National Defense Authorization Act mandates an additional 15 percent reduction over the next three years. We are manned at only 34 percent of our wartime staff requirements. The resultant long workdays, combined with being continuously engaged twenty-four hours a day, increases stress on our military members and their families. We need your help to reverse this trend. National Guard and Reserve personnel from all Services play a large and crucial role in our command. We recently launched a major Reserve Component initiative, which includes the objectives of developing specific wartime tasks and accompanying mission guidance for each enhanced Separate Brigade in our war plans. We are also enthusiastic about the opportunities inherent in the "Chairman's Ten" -- the Reserve Flag and General officers provided by Congress for assignment to the CINCs. This program will provide us an even greater opportunity to tap into the tremendous skill and expertise in our Guard and Reserve general officers. Currently, we have a total of twenty-two Reserve component flag and general officers from all Services assigned as wartime fills. Finally, we are under-funded for the day-to-day operations of the headquarters, most of which are personnel salaries. We require $25.4 million in fiscal year 2001 to cover pay, travel, supplies, and small contracts for Combined Forces, United Nations, United States Forces Korea, and Eighth Army command headquarters. Force Protection: Our second command priority is the crucial issue of Force Protection. I want to address the issues of vulnerability to terrorism, protection of noncombatants, security guards, and operational force protection. While the threat from off-peninsula terrorist groups is low, our vulnerabilities to terrorism remain high. The surrounding urban environments, decaying infrastructure, and the lack of available real estate for force protection modifications are the key contributors to our vulnerabilities. To eliminate these deficiencies and reduce our vulnerability, we are in the process of determining the funding necessary to create blast standoff, fix infrastructure, provide early warning to our troops in the field, and improve our overall posture against a terrorist attack. One essential effort to address force protection weaknesses is our Land Campaign Plan initiative. This planning effort, when fully executed, will allow United States Forces Korea to consolidate and shift many of our installations and training areas from urban centers to rural areas. The effort will also allow us to move more of our people onto our installations. This requires a significant long-term commitment from both the Republic of Korea government and United States Forces Korea to consolidate at those sites. We take very seriously the protection of our noncombatants. A significant improvement to our Force and Family Protection Program is the issuing of chemical biological protective systems to all Department of Defense-affiliated noncombatants to include both command and non-command sponsored personnel that began in November 1999. This program is not a response to any new or increased threat, but is just a prudent step in improving our force protection posture. The equipment, coupled with an aggressive training program including semi-annual non-combatant exercises will enhance the safety of our family members. Our contract security guard force is key to our force protection but underfunded. This cadre of professional security guards protects United States Forces Korea personnel and resources without diverting soldiers to secure our gates and perimeter. The program is funded in fiscal year 2001. However, underfunding grows from $12 million in fiscal year 2002 to approximately $17 million in fiscal year 2007. If not corrected, we will be forced to migrate funds from Operations Tempo because we cannot afford to take military personnel away from training to guard installations. In operational force protection, theater missile defense remains one of our highest priorities. The Patriot defensive systems we have in the Republic of Korea are essential to the accomplishment of our plans. It is only prudent that we continuously evaluate the number of Patriot defensive systems in the Republic of Korea. Even today 25 we believe that the North Korean Ballistic Missile threat is growing which creates a need for greater theater missile defense coverage. We also fully support the development of the Theater High Altitude Air Defense, the Airborne Laser, and Navy Area and Navy Theater Wide initiatives. Only a comprehensive family of systems are capable of protecting the force from the substantial theater ballistic missile threat. Force Development: As technology advances we must constantly seek innovative improvements to our capabilities through Force Development. We would benefit most from improved, intelligence collection; ability to locate and track weapons of mass destruction; protect against nuclear, biological, and chemical attack; and ability to defeat deep buried, and hardened targets. The forward deployed North Korean military makes early detection of warning and indicators crucial, and continuous intelligence collection an imperative. Airborne collection platforms of all types- imagery, signals, signature- and other detection means are vital to us in Korea. We need more of these systems to decrease risk. We also require continued investment in, and modernization of, intelligence and analysis capabilities to provide the detailed information needed by today's sophisticated precision weapons and systems. My Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Brigadier General Nicholas Grant, will present the specific requirements later in his classified testimony. Short warning times and close proximity complicate our defense against North Korean weapons of mass destruction. Coupled with limited information and lack of access to the North's programs, our command faces a troubling threat. We need a better capability to locate, and track these weapons of mass destruction. Again, Brigadier General Grant will present greater detail in his testimony. Nuclear, chemical, and biological protection systems also remains one of our top priorities for force modernization. We need additional biological detection equipment and individual chemical protective clothing for both in-place and deploying forces. Key to our success in this area is the early deployment of Reserve Component decontamination units. Finally, the tremendous degree of deep buried and hardened targets in North Korea can complicate our targeting efforts. We are fully engaged with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff on programs that will enable us to attack and defeat these targets in the event of hostilities and we will continue this involvement. Quality of Life: Quality of life, our fourth command priority, is critical to our mission. Personnel Tempo is 365 days a year in this hardship area. Our military and civilians wake each day to face one of the most threatening situations in the world today. These men and women deserve reasonable and appropriate quality of life benefits. Our intent is to make a Korean tour the assignment of choice for our military personnel by providing the best quality of life possible for the personnel in my command. This is clearly not the case today. Our objective for housing unaccompanied enlisted service members in quality housing is to ensure we meet the Department of Defense mandate that all barracks meet the current standard by 2010, with funding no later than 2008. Our goal is to totally eradicate all such substandard working and living conditions in United States Forces Korea by 2020. To correct these deficiencies, I need to address military construction. First, let me say that as a direct result of your help with the supplemental appropriations, United States Forces Korea has been able to repair previous flood damage and prevent new damage. Last year, General Tilelli thanked you for the prompt passage of the $253.8 million Emergency Supplemental Appropriation to restore badly damaged facilities caused by the August 1998 floods in Korea. I add my thanks to you for the legislation and can report that we are currently executing the repairs as planned. Areas that were previously damaged in 1998, received no further damage during the 1999 floods. Thanks to you, this is truly a success. The Military Construction funding for Korea during the past 14 years has averaged only $60 million per year. Coupled with the total elimination of Military Construction dollars for our command between 1991 and 1994, this has impacted on our service members' quality of life. Chronic under-funding of annual Real Property Maintenance and Repair, which is $73 million short, and annual Public Works, which is $64 million short, in fiscal year 2001, exacerbates an already serious problem with troop housing, dining facilities, work areas, and infrastructure. Overcrowded facilities force us to billet over 1,560 unaccompanied personnel off-post. Existing unaccompanied housing and dining facilities continue to suffer from rapid deterioration and excessive wear and tear due to overcrowding. Of the over 9,600 buildings within my command, almost 14 percent are 40-80 years old. Korean War- era Quonset huts and Vietnam-era buildings numbering 3,231 still have military personnel working and living in them. During 1997 and 1998, the command suffered 545 electrical power and 357 water supply outages from decaying infrastructure. We cannot continue to ask our people to live and work like this. We need an average of $469 million per year in Military Construction from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2008 to meet our minimum requirements. However, we recognize that this amount is not possible under today's budget constraints. A viable alternative is to defer some projects and equally distribute our program out to 2020. This will reduce the annual cost to $366 million of which $132 million will be provided by the Republic of Korea and the remaining $234 million by Military Construction. I highly recommend that you come to Korea and see these conditions first hand. To reiterate our requirements for fiscal year 2001, we need an additional $67 million in Readiness for training, command and control, and combatant headquarters support; $73 million in Real Property Maintenance; and $64 million in Public Works, for a total of $204 million in Operations and Maintenance funds. Military construction requires an additional $146 million plus the new requirement of $12.4 million for the urban terrain training facility in fiscal year 2001. Overall, Military Construction requires $234 million annually (given the current level of Host Nation Funded Construction) from fiscal year 2002 through fiscal year 2020. We are still assessing the additional requirements for our comprehensive improvement on the command, control, communications, and computers infrastructure. Before concluding, let me point out that these funding shortfalls have a very real and detrimental impact that ripples through all four of our command priorities. Funding shortfalls force us to migrate funds, where we pull critical money from one area to fund a higher priority. For example, of the $204 million Operations and Maintenance 29 shortages for fiscal year 2001 that I just mentioned, $38 million worth of those requirements are absolute "must fund" items. We will have to accept risk to divert approximately $32 million from Land Forces (OPTEMPO) into Land Forces Readiness (Operational Readiness-OPRED) for the Korea Battle Simulation Center, and our combatant headquarters. Additionally, we will reduce Base Operations Quality of Life programs to migrate $6 million for some shortages in our Global Command and Control System. We need your help to prevent such migration. Eliminating our shortfalls will properly fund the training, infrastructure, and an acceptable quality of life that we owe our military people serving in Korea. CONCLUSION In conclusion, I would like to leave you with four thoughts. First, I want to emphasize that the support of Congress and the American people is vitally important to our future in Korea. We thank you for all you have done. Congress remains our Service members' best friend. Concomitantly, we must ensure that our resolve is consistent and visible so that North Korea, or any other potential adversary, cannot misinterpret it. As long as the North clearly understands that we are unified in our security relationship, we strengthen our deterrence. We have an investment of over 50 years in this region. We must continue to build on it to guarantee the stability that is so important to the people of Korea, Northeast Asia, and to our own national interests. I urge committee members to come to Korea and see first-hand the importance of the American military presence and the strength and vitality of the United States - Republic of Korea alliance. Second, the North Korean military continues to grow and improve in spite of severe economic problems. However, the strength of the Republic of Korea - United States alliance, built on a foundation of teamwork and combined training, provides both nations with a powerful deterrent as well as the readiness to fight and win. Third, this summer will begin the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War, viewed by many of our veterans as the "forgotten war." We are committed to honoring the brave veterans, living and dead and hope you can join us in Korea for this commemoration to remember their sacrifice. Finally, you can be justifiably proud off all the exceptional things the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Defense Department civilians continue to do with great spirit and conviction. They remain our most valuable asset. They sacrifice for our Nation every day. This is why we remain so firm that we owe all those who faithfully serve proper resources for training, a quality infrastructure, and an adequate quality of life. Again, thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts with you. (end text) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)