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U.S. GROUP OBSERVING COMPUTERIZED WARGAMES

ROC Central News Agency

2005-04-19 20:50:15

    Taipei, April 19 (CNA) An American military adviser group is observing a computer simulation that is part of Taiwan's annual "Han Kuang 21" military exercise, a legislator of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Tuesday.

    The remarks by DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung, a member of the defense committee in the Legislative Yuan and an expert in Taiwan military affairs, came after Japan's NHK TV channel reported that Dennis Blair, former head of the U.S. Pacific Command, is leading a delegation of around 20 military officers that is observing the computerized wargames that started Monday.

    NHK commented that this was the first time that the U.S. Defense Department has openly said it has sent military personnel to Taiwan, which the TV channel claimed "strongly indicates" that it wants to counterbalance China.

    Lee said that this is not the first time that the U.S. Pacific Command has sent a military adviser group to monitor the computerized wargames.

    But with the continued expansion of China's military might, he claimed, military cooperation between Taiwan and the United States will become even closer.

    He noted that in the past, the U.S. adviser group would only observe some of the wargames, but this year they will observe throughout the five-day period of the games.

    The five-day computerized war simulations are armed at honing various combat strategies and tactics, including anti-blockade strategies, airborne defense control, naval forces' air defense and maritime control tactics, as well as cyber-defense operations.

    Live-fire drills -- another part of the "Han Kuang 21" annual series of drills devoted to testing the armed forces' combat prowess -- are scheduled for June through August to verify combat strategies and tactics hammered out during the computerized wargames. These maneuvers will include strategies to cope with blitz attacks on a major local oil depot and undersea cables.

    The live-fire exercises will also practice counter-strategies against warfare methods such as carpet bombing, infiltrations, abductions, hijackings, computer virus attacks and decapitation strikes.

(By Lilian Wu)

ENDITEM/J