Military officials seek support for Kidd-class ships

A group of active-duty and retired top brass from different services yesterday joined hands to drum up support for the navy's plan to buy four Kidd-class destroyers from the US -- a plan that has come under fire from many sides.

The admirals and generals have adopted a new strategy to make their case for the Kidds, namely to stress the vulnerability the navy would have without the destroyers.

It poses a great contrast to the navy's previous strategy of emphasizing how good the Kidds are as compared with the warships currently in service and how these ships would enhance navy combat capability.

Rear Admiral Tung Hsiang-lung (董翔龍), chief of the navy's bureau of plans, said the navy's active fighting ships, such as the Chenkung-class frigates, would not survive in the event of an attack by more than one fighter plane of the Chinese air force.

"Although the Kidds do not have full anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capabilities, they are still the best Taiwan can acquire to defend shipping routes around the island," Tung said.

Tung made the remarks yesterday at a public hearing on the controversial purchase plan at the legislature. The hearing was held by DPP lawmaker Li Wen-chung (李文忠).

Li, who supported the Kidd purchase plan, invited both active-duty and retired admirals and generals to help make his case.

The generals included Tung, Tung's predecessor Vice Admiral Kung Chia-cheng (龔家政), who is currently chief of staff at the logistics command center, retired army general Shui Hua-ming (帥化民), and retired navy admiral Lan Lin-li (蘭寧利).

Their approach to the topic was to emphasize where the navy's vulnerability would lie with respect to China's missile-power without the destroyers. Lan argued that the Kidds would be a life-saver for Taiwan, since all existing fighting ships of the navy are incapable of surviving attacks by China's major anti-ship missiles.

Shui, though in the army, said the Kidds would be of great help to the building of joint operations capabilities which the military now lacks.

Despite these generals' arguments, ex-navy chief and incumbent PFP lawmaker Nelson Ku (顧崇廉), who is one of the lawmakers strongly opposed to the Kidd purchase plan, kept to his opposing views.

Ku, who spoke at yesterday's public hearing at the legislature, said the Kidds were not in the navy purchase plan and that the US was coercing Taiwan to make a decision detrimental to the navy's original long-term arms build-up plan.

"We could choose not to buy the Kidds. Without buying the four decommissioned ships, the navy could have extra personnel to man 30-some missile boats," Ku said.

Ku was one of the naval leaders who promoted the idea of using smaller ships as the navy's main fighting power. He was of the so-called "small-ship faction." The small-ship faction is losing membership, resulting in a less vocal lobby in recent years after Ku and others of his kind retired and no longer had the power to influence the navy.