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Army slams press for scaring people with bogus weapon

A defense official yesterday criticized the press as being "unprofessional" in reporting the threat that an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) weapon might pose to Taiwan, since such a weapon has not been proven to exist.

Major General Tyson Fu (扶台興), of the National Defense University (NDU), said it was incredible that the press actually made an issue out of a non-existent EMP weapon.

"The pulse is not a new discovery. It was discovered when the first atomic bomb was detonated by the US. From then until now, the US has tried very hard to weaponize the EMP, but without perceivable success," Fu said.

"As a US general has said, the EMP weapon is still under development. The US was suspected of having used EMP weapons against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. But the US government denied those speculations again and again," he said.

"It is a shame that the press and some scholars recently worked together to create a false alarm for the country by wildly discussing the potential damage that China might inflict upon Taiwan if it uses the EMP weapon," he said.

"Everybody was talking about how much damage an EMP bomb could inflict on the nation's infrastructure. But there is no evidence to show that an EMP weapon can actually be successfully developed."

Fu made the remarks yesterday as he spoke at a discussion held at the military's political warfare college. The subject of the meeting was "National Security and the Press' Right to Know."

Although blasting the press for its recent "unprofessional" reports on the EMP weapon -- probably triggered by an article in Newsweek -- Fu went on to side with the press against the military's confusing and outdated document classification system, which have caused journalists much inconvenience.

"The military's document classification system doesn't make any sense. Some documents which should be classified are unclassified, while some which should be unclassified turn out to be classified," Fu said.

A former Ministry of National Defense (MND) spokesman, Major General Kung Fan-ding (孔繁定), who is now deputy chief of the political warfare bureau, said the MND has made concrete efforts in recent years to provide better news services to the press. Kung also attended yesterday's meeting with Fu.

"Since 1996, the MND has been holding regular press conferences on a weekly basis," Kung said, citing the fact as an example of the MND's efforts to provide better news services.

"The MND is quite willing to improve its relations with the press. But we will insist on some principles in our contacts with the press," he said.

"We will not talk, for instance, on any sensitive defense issues such as weapons procurement or military exchanges with foreign countries," he said. "This is one of the principles that we will strictly follow in dealing with the press."
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