As I have been saying for quite some time, it doesn’t matter who is in the Korean Blue House; who ever it is will remain committed to delaying the USFK relocation to Camp Humphreys:
South Korea will have to pay almost $9 billion to relocate U.S. military bases to Pyeongtaek, about $3 billion more than defense officials estimated last spring, several South Korean newspapers reported this week.
According to some reports, unnamed sources said completion of the Camp Humphreys expansion at Pyeongtaek could be delayed by as much as four years to 2016. U.S. military bases in and north of Seoul are supposed to close and their troops are scheduled to move to Humphreys by 2012.
The South Korean reports said the cost of the relocation has increased because of rising costs for construction, compensation for Pyeongtaek landowners whose property will become part of the new base, and clean up of U.S. military bases being returned to South Korea.
The reports said the new amounts were based on a Ministry of National Defense audit. [Stars & Stripes]
The Korean government has never wanted the USFK relocation to happen for a variety of reasons and the only reason it has gotten as far as it has was because of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s threat to withdraw USFK which was made quite clear with the redeployment of 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division from the Korean peninsula along with a host of other troop cuts. A few days after Rumsfeld resigned from office the Korean government immediately reneged on the transformation deal and announced the first delay of the Camp Humphreys relocation to 2012.
New Korean President Lee Myung-bak since coming to office has continued these delay games by trying to delay the operation control of ROK forces, reduction of troops on the peninsula, and the relocation of 2ID. This latest report is just a continuation of these delay policies.
Expect this issue to gain more traction in the coming months as the anti-US forces behind the current US beef protests begin to shift their new found political power against USFK which has been their ultimate goal from the beginning of the protests. I fully expect them to use the USFK funding issue and the ridiculous camp pollution issue in order mobilize public opinion to stop the base relocation which all sides will be more then happy to see happen.
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1:42 am on June 13th, 2008 1
I’ve got a little bit interested in your post about camp pollution issue. Read your post, dig up Yonhap’s original article in English and finally equivalent article in Korean.
http://app.yonhapnews.co.kr/YNA/Basic/article/search/YIBW_showSearchArticle.aspx?searchpart=article&searchtext=%ec%b9%b4%ec%9d%bc%20%ea%b8%b0%ec%a7%80&contents_id=AKR20071031205800043&search=1
What interested me is the difference in the tone and some of the details. In Korean article, there’s no mention of soldiers of “anti-contamination suit”, “jack boots” or “no-use land”. While key message is the same, the tone is vasly different because of that, which is pretty interesting. I have no idea why.
6:45 am on June 13th, 2008 2
I think it would be a good time to remove another 2nd ID brigade from Korea. Let the ROKs know that since they can not afford to fund there share of the defence of there country, we would reduce the size of the forces needing to be relocated to fit there budget.
Case Closed.
2:22 pm on June 13th, 2008 3
2:57 pm on June 13th, 2008 4
I think there will be a delay, and a possibility the total move will never take place. However, I think USFK’s integrity is at stake if they continue to publically state that the move will take place by 2012, if in fact, it is known that it will not. This happened with the 2008 move date. Leadership stuck to that date to the very end, even when it was obvious to eveyone it would not happen. When you misrepresent yourself on one issue, other issues and positions come into question.
9:32 am on June 14th, 2008 5
Pull our people out of Korea its, time to let them manage ther own little crumb of dirt that is really worthless and not so get a place to spend when ther are better places our military is needed.
Mike
1:44 am on July 23rd, 2008 6
[...] last delay put the Camp Humphreys relocation project’s completion at 2016 and now there is another delay that is putting the relocation at [...]
3:02 pm on August 25th, 2008 7
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12:16 am on August 31st, 2008 8
[...] last delay put the Camp Humphreys relocation project’s completion at 2016 and now there is another delay that is putting the relocation at [...]