U.S. Beefs Up S. Korea Arms; Threat Mounts

The Clinton Administration has begun moving to strengthen U.S. and South Korean forces in the face of mounting military threats from North Korea, and it will take added steps if the United Nations imposes sanctions against Pyongyang, officials said Friday.

Officials said Washington is starting to transfer weapons and equipment to South Korea and making preparations to enable U.S. forces to launch missile-carrying warplanes more quickly if North Korean troops, stationed along the border, decide to attack.

The United States is also pressing Seoul to buy more artillery-locating radar, Apache attack helicopters and precision-guided antitank munitions.

The equipment would help remedy shortcomings in the South Korean army’s ability to defend itself against a massive ground attack.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry, speaking at a news conference, described the measures as “a prudent precaution.”

He said he still sees “no sense of imminent military danger,” despite the belligerent rhetoric from Pyongyang.

The disclosures came as South Korea reported that North Korea has placed its troops on alert, banned all domestic travel and told its people that war appears inevitable, escalating the growing tensions between the two sides.

North Korea has still not acceded to U.S. and U.N. demands to allow international monitors to complete their inspection of an important nuclear plant.

On Wednesday, Pyongyang repeated its warning that sanctions would trigger a full-scale war.

Separately Friday, members of the U.N. Security Council circulated a draft of a new resolution that would urge North Korea to allow the inspectors to complete their work but stops short of imposing formal sanctions.

The document, which officials said could be brought up for a vote sometime next week, also urges North and South Korea to resume talks on putting into effect a 1992 joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

The resolution is part of a final effort by the allies to give North Korea a chance to comply with the nuclear inspectors’ demands before the Security Council begins consideration of a proposal to impose economic sanctions.

Perry took pains Friday to assert that Washington is moving “in a careful way” to bolster its forces.

“We will not be intimidated either by actions or by statements from the North Korean government,” he said, “but we are not being provocative.”

But he warned that if the current round of diplomatic efforts does not persuade North Korea to accede to international inspection, “the next step has to be sanctions.” He said the allies probably will make that decision in “a month to six weeks.”

Perry also raised the possibility that the allies might eventually impose a naval embargo on North Korea if it becomes necessary to block movement of military equipment or components in or out of the country as part of a series of U.N.-ordered sanctions.

“That’s an undertaking, now, which is very close to war,” he said.

Perry said he plans to travel to South Korea in mid-April to meet with officials, review the situation and discuss proposals for bolstering U.S. and South Korean defenses.

The United States has already decided to ship Patriot air-defense missiles to South Korea and has begun considering a new request from Gen. Gary E. Luck, the senior U.S. commander on the Korean peninsula, for additional moves to bolster U.S. forces.

The Administration generally believes that North Korea is only posturing in its warnings that sanctions will trigger a full-scale war, but U.S. policy-makers regard Pyongyang as so unpredictable that they are making contingency plans anyway.

“We have a very limited knowledge of what drives the thinking of the leadership in the North Korean government,” Perry said.

Among the unknowns, he said, is “what is likely to cause them to respond in a positive way, what’s likely to cause them to respond in a negative . . . way.”

The immediate steps that Perry said the Pentagon is taking to strengthen U.S. and South Korean forces are modest. They include transferring more weapons to the South Koreans, providing their pilots with special training and pre-positioning more aircraft parts and munitions there.

“None of them is very dramatic,” Perry said, “but the net effect is that we could get large quantities of tactical (aircraft)--in particular with . . . anti-armor munitions--to the field and in an operating mode in a matter of a few days.”

Perry repeated the list of possible sanctions that the allies are considering, ranging from economic restrictions such as blocking financial flows or oil to North Korea to an attempt to cut off the import or export of military equipment.

He said there are no plans now to increase the number of U.S. troops in South Korea. The United States has 37,000 soldiers in the country, while the South Korean army totals about 650,000 troops.

Perry said shortcomings in South Korean defenses are “a matter of concern to us,” particularly in view of the North Korean force, which includes more than 1 million soldiers, backed by massive numbers of tanks and artillery, within a few miles of the border.