(From the Korea Herald)Military intelligence officials and prosecutors are investigating whether an Army major general, recently booked on espionage charges, had leaked the Korea-U.S. combined war scenario "Operational Plan 5027."
The Defense Security Command (DSC) has been questioning the two-star general, identified only by the surname Kim, over whether he handed over the core content of the OPLAN 5027 to a spy for North Korea.
The spy, surnamed Park, was a former South Korean military intelligence official recruited by North Korea. Kim is purported to have given classified information regarding military management and operations to Park between 2005 and 2007.
Prosecutors arrested Park and an executive of a local defense firm last Thursday on charges of offering military secrets to the communist state.
"We are not yet at a stage to conclude that OPLAN 5027 has been handed over to the North. We are conducting our investigation over the possible leak of the military secrets in a variety of directions," said a DSC official on condition of anonymity.
The DSC plans to seek an arrest warrant once it finds Kim handed over the content of the war plan over to the communist country. The military is expanding its probe on the case to verify if more military officials are implicated in the alleged espionage activities.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries maintain the joint war plan in case of North Korean aggression. The plan was first drawn up in 1974 and has been revised and complemented several times.
Under the plan, if hostilities break out, the United States would deploy up to 690,000 troops, 160 vessels and 2,000 aircraft to the peninsula, in addition to the current troops stationed here, which total 28,500, to help South Korean forces remove the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and defeat his 1.19-million-strong military.
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