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| Captured Koksan gun at the al-Suwayrah artillery depot, Iraq - 1988 (my photo) |
The world's attention remains focused on North Korea and its continuing research and development of a deliverable nuclear weapon, specifically a nuclear warhead for its newly-tested Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). At last check, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has decided against "testing" four of his Hwasong-12 intermediate range ballistic missiles by launching them over 2000 miles into international waters a mere 20 miles from the U.S. territory of Guam.
Any confrontation between the United States and North Korea will undoubtedly ignite a war on the Korean peninsula and possibly the entire region, including Japan. A key part of North Korea's strategy is a massive artillery and rocket attack on the South Korean capital city of Seoul. The metropolitan area of the city is home to over 10 million people - the number of casualties would be astronomical.
The distance from the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ) to Seoul is about 35 miles, normally considered beyond the range of conventional artillery. To ensure the capability to reach Seoul, the North Koreans developed what has become known in the West as the Koksan gun, more formally the M1978 Koksan 170mm self-propelled field gun. With a rocket-assisted projectile, the gun can fire an artillery round over 36 miles, or just enough to fire from the DMZ into the South Korean capital.
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| Koksan gun in Iranian service on the al-Faw peninsula |
In 1987, seeking to generate much-needed revenue, the North Koreans sold a number of Koksan guns to Iran. Iran had been at war with Iraq for almost seven years. Although the Iraqis had initially seized Iranian territory, they were unable to hold it - every year the Iranians pushed the Iraqis further back, until taking the al-Faw peninsula from the Iraqis.
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| Artillery fires from al-Faw to Kuwait |
The acquisition of this piece of Iraqi territory allowed Iran to use the newly-received Koksan guns to fire from the peninsula into Kuwait's northeastern oilfields. Iran shelled the Kuwaiti oilfields - as well as firing Chinese-made SILKWORM missiles into Kuwait's ports - as punishment for Kuwait's support of Iraq in the war. Kuwaiti and Saudi oil exports kept prices low, hurting Iran's war effort as Tehran struggled to pay for imported weaponry (like the SILKWORM missiles and North Korean artillery).
At this time, I was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the Pentagon. My office was charged with overseeing defense intelligence operations and analysis for the Middle East, including the developing relationship between DIA and the Iraqi Directorate of Military Intelligence. We were aware of the Iranians firing missiles into Kuwaiti ports, hoping to intimidate the Kuwaitis from shipping larger amounts of oil.
In early 1988, we received reports from our Kuwaiti colleagues about unexplained artillery shelling of their northeastern oilfields. It was puzzling because we did not believe the Iranians were in possession of artillery systems capable of reaching the Kuwaiti oilfields. The Kuwaitis provided us with one of the shells which did not explode - we measured it at 170mm. At that time, we were unaware of anyone manufacturing a 170mm artillery piece - standard calibers at that time were 122mm, 130mm. 152mm, 155mm, 175mm and 203mm.
At about this same time, President Reagan, reacting to an intelligence community assessment that Iran was likely to win the war against Iraq within the year, directed the Secretary of Defense to provide intelligence information to Iraq to prevent an Iranian victory. The President deemed it unacceptable for Iran to control both Iranian and Iraqi oil production, and to be in a position to intimidate Kuwait and Saudi Arabia into lowering production and thereby raising the price of oil.
I was dispatched to Baghdad to handle the flow of information to the Iraqi DMI. Using our information, the Iraqis were able to regain control of the al-Faw peninsula in April 1988. Shortly afterwords, the Iraqis notified us that they had captured an unusual artillery piece on the peninsula and asked our assistance in identifying it.
Our defense attache in Baghdad, an artillery officer, traveled to the recaptured peninsula to see the gun. He recognized the gun from grainy photos the intelligence community had taken from television coverage of a North Korean military parade. The Iraqis had captured what we had never been able to put eyes on, let alone touch - a Koksan gun.
The first thing the attache did was measure the bore - 170mm. That explained the mysterious shelling of Kuwait's oilfields. It also told us that North Korea was actively supporting Iran in the war, which did not please the Iraqis. We at DIA explained to the Iraqis the importance of the gun to American forces and asked for the gun. I was directed to find a way to get the gun back to the United States for intelligence exploitation. Although the Iraqis initially agreed, they later decided to keep the gun but allowed us unlimited access to it.
I escorted a team of U.S. Army engineers and artillery officers to Iraq for as much exploitation as we could do in the field. The Iraqis moved the gun to the al-Suwayrah artillery depot about an hour south of Baghdad - we had five days to do everything but take it apart, later providing a detailed intelligence report for U.S. and allied forces' use.
As a side note - I found numerous used atropine injectors in the Koksan's driver's compartment, and what we later determined to be decontamination fluid in the vehicle's headlights. When I asked the Iraqis about these indications of chemical warfare usage, they deflected by claiming that Iraqi use of smoke confused the Iranians into thinking they were under chemical attack. It was a lie - I knew it and they knew it.
Exploitation of a Koksan gun in the Iraqi desert in 1988 was key to an accurate assessment of the ability of North Korean artillery to reach Seoul, South Korea.
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