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Did an American Mine Sink South Korean Ship?
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By Yoichi Shimatsu
New American Media
Sunday, May 30, 2010
BEIJING - South Korean Prime Minister Lee Myung-bak has claimed
"overwhelming evidence" that a North Korean torpedo sank the corvette
Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors. U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton claimed that there’s "overwhelming evidence" in favor
of the theory that North Korea sank the South Korean Navy warship
Cheonan. But the articles of proof presented so far by military
investigators to an official inquiry board have been scanty and
inconsistent.
There’s yet another possibility, that a U.S. rising mine sank the Cheonan in a friendly-fire accident.
In the recent U.S.-China strategic talks in Shanghai and Beijing, the
Chinese side dismissed the official scenario presented by the Americans
and their South Korean allies as not credible. This conclusion was
based on an independent technical assessment by the Chinese military,
according to a Beijing-based military affairs consultant to the People
Liberation Army.
Hardly any of the relevant facts that counter
the official verdict have made headline news in either South Korea or
its senior ally, the United States.
The first telltale sign of
an official smokescreen involves the location of the Choenan sinking -
Byeongnyeong Island (pronounced Pyongnang) in the Yellow Sea. On the
westernmost fringe of South Korean territory, the island is dominated
by a joint U.S.-Korean base for anti-submarine warfare (ASW)
operations. The sea channel between Byeongnyeong and the North Korean
coast is narrow enough for both sides to be in artillery range of each
other.
Anti-sub warfare is based on sonar and acoustic
detection of underwater craft. Since civilian traffic is not routed
through the channel, the noiseless conditions are near-perfect for
picking up the slightest agitation, for example from a torpedo and any
submarine that might fire it.
North Korea admits it does not
possess an underwater craft stealthy enough to slip past the advanced
sonar and audio arrays around Byeongnyeong Island, explained North
Korean intelligence analyst Kim Myong Chol in a news release. "The
sinking took place not in North Korean waters but well inside tightly
guarded South Korean waters, where a slow-moving North Korean submarine
would have great difficulty operating covertly and safely, unless it
was equipped with AIP (air-independent propulsion) technology."
The Cheonan sinking occurred in the aftermath of the March 11-18 Foal
Eagle Exercise, which included anti-submarine maneuvers by a joint
U.S.-South Korean squadron of five missile ships. A mystery surrounds
the continued presence of the U.S. missile cruisers for more than eight
days after the ASW exercise ended.
Only one reporter, Joohee
Cho of ABC News, picked up the key fact that the Foal Eagle flotilla
curiously included the USNS Salvor, a diving-support ship with a crew
of 12 Navy divers. The lack of any minesweepers during the exercise
leaves only one possibility: the Salvor was laying bottom mines.
Ever since an American cruiser was damaged by one of Saddam Hussein's
rising mines, also known as bottom mines, in the Iraq War, the U.S.
Navy has pushed a crash program to develop a new generation of mines.
The U.S. Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command has also been
focused on developing counterparts to the fearsome Chinese naval
"assassin's mace," which is propelled by a rocket engine.
A
rising mine, which is effective only in shallow waters, rests atop a
small platform on the sea floor under a camouflage of sand and gravel.
Its detection system uses acoustics and magnetic readings to pick up
enemy ships and submarines. When activated, jets of compressed air or
solid-fuel rockets lift the bomb, which self-guides toward the magnetic
center of the target. The blast rips the keel, splitting the ship or
submarine into two neat pieces, just as was done to the RKOS Cheonan.
A lateral-fired torpedo, in contrast, "holes" the target's hull,
tilting the vessel in the classic war movie manner. The South Korean
government displayed to the press the intact propeller shaft of a
torpedo that supposedly struck the Cheonan. Since torpedoes travel
between 40-50 knots per hour (which is faster than collision tests for
cars), a drive shaft would crumble upon impacting the hull and its
bearing and struts would be shattered or bent by the high-powered blast.
The initial South Korean review stated that the explosive was
gunpowder, which would conform to North Korea's crude munitions. This
claim was later overturned by the inquiry board, which found the
chemical residues to be similar to German advanced explosives. Due to
sanctions against Pyongyang and its few allies, it is hardly credible
that North Korea could obtain NATO-grade ordnance.
Thus, the
mystery centers on the USNS Salvor, which happened to be yet right near
Byeongyang Island at the time of the Cheonan sinking and far from its
home base, Pearl Harbor. The inquiry board in Seoul has not questioned
the officers and divers of the Salvor, which oddly is not under the
command of the 7th Fleet but controlled by the innocuous-sounding
Military Sealift Command. Diving-support ships like the Salvor are
closely connected with the Office of Naval Intelligence since their
duties include secret operations such as retrieving weapons from sunken
foreign ships, scouting harbor channels and laying mines, as when the
Salvor trained Royal Thai Marine divers in mine-laying in the Gulf of
Thailand in 2006, for example.
The Salvor's presence points to
an inadvertent release of a rising mine, perhaps because its activation
system was not switched off. A human error or technical glitch is very
much within the realm of possibility due to the swift current and
strong tides that race through the Byeongnyeong Channel. The arduous
task of mooring the launch platforms to the sea floor allows the divers
precious little time for double-checking the electronic systems.
If indeed it was an American rising mine that sank the Cheonan, it
would constitute a friendly-fire accident. That in itself is not
grounds for a criminal investigation against the presidential office
and, at worst, amounts only to negligence by the military. However, any
attempt to falsify evidence and engage in a media cover-up for
political purposes constitutes tampering, fraud, perjury and possibly
treason.
Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan
Times, is an environmental consultant and a commentator on Asian
affairs for CCTV-9 Dialogue.
New American Media
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