ARMY MAY EXPAND WAR INQUIRY
News-Gazette,
Champaign, IL
October 21, 1999
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Army may expand its inquiry into
the mass killings of civilians at Nogun-ri to
include other Korean War incidents and will eventually take up the possibility
of compensating victims’ families, the Pentagon’s spokesman said
Wednesday.
Kenneth Bacon
said the investigation has begun with a new review of documents related to the
killings but has not yet included interviews.
The Pentagon has said it will for the first time talk about the killings
with veterans, including those who told The Associated Press they witnessed or
participated in the incident under a railroad bridge at Nogun-ri in late July 1950 during the early days of the Korean
War.
Officials have
said previous examination of military records found no evidence of a massacre
and were the basis for U.S. and South Korean rejections of pleas from victims’
families and survivors seeking acknowledgement of the killings and
compensation.
Defense
Secretary William Cohen ordered the Army to conduct an inquiry after the AP on
Sept. 30 reported the killing of up to 400 men, women and children under the Nogun-ri bridge.
Subsequent AP stories reported the killing of U.S. forces of hundreds
more refugees in other incidents, including the blowing up of two strategic
bridges with clear indications that officers giving the orders knew they would
be crowded with fleeing civilians. The
incidents occurred as U.S. soldiers feared throngs of refugees fleeing the
battle were infiltrated by North Korean soldiers.
Bacon said
other incidents reported by the AP could be included in the review and inquiry
which would first focus only on Nogun-ri. "I think it will be broader than Nogun-ri," he said at a press conference for foreign reporters
based in Washington, "but how broad I cannot tell you at this stage."
Bacon said he
also could not tell how long the investigation would be. Army Secretary Louis Caldera
had said it could take more than a year.
This is serious
business," Bacon said. "It’s very
complex and we’d rather take the time and do it right rather than do it too
hastily." He noted that the AP reports
contained some conflicting accounts of the incident which he said would have to
be sorted out. He said the military’s
top priority is to gather information about Nogun-ri.
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