One-line quote stirs Korean media and U.S. aides

Yesterday was a bit of a bad day for the media and for the U.S. government officials who deal with them.
At Yongsan Garrison, U.S. Forces Korea issued a press release responding to what it said were inaccurate media reports of comments by Lieutenant General Charles Campbell, the USFK chief of staff. General Campbell, according to press reports during the day, had said there would be a reduction of U.S. troop levels here as Yongsan Garrison and the U.S. 2d Infantry Division moved to new bases south of Seoul. The question of troop reductions has been a sensitive issue here because of its domestic political implications. President Roh Moo-hyun had complained during the election campaign last year about several U.S. troop-related issues, and the conservative opposition has attacked him for opening the door to U.S. moves to reposition its forces in ways that worry some Koreans.
“Any media reports attributing comments about troop reduction are inaccurate,” the USFK statement said. But it did not mention that those reports were based on a sentence, “Some reduction in force will accompany those moves,” in the prepared text of General Campbell’s remarks. Some reporters evidently based their stories on that text rather than on the remarks as presented.
The problem was considered serious enough that Colonel Samuel Taylor, the outgoing spokesman for USFK, was sent to the Ministry of National Defense later in the day to brief reporters there on the problem. He told the group that General Campbell had ordered the offending sentence removed from the speech, but by that time it had already been handed out to the media.

by Ser Myo-ja