The air force general headquarters is to discipline several senior officials assigned to a radar control and reporting center in Hualien because of their involvement in an incident in which a colonel at the center brought two female subordinates to a sex parlor, defense sources said yesterday.
The headquarters did not learn of the incident, which occurred on Oct. 26, until a complaint from a non-commissioned-officer (NCO) at the center was received.
The NCO, an eyewitnesses to the incident, contacted the headquarters after having been told by the center's political warfare department, to which he had previously reported the affair, to keep quiet about it, and having been threatened by the colonel with a transfer to an outlying island.
A general with the headquarters said that both the colonel and the political warfare officials who tried to cover up his behavior were to be severely disciplined. The general said that the two female officers who accompanied the colonel to the sex parlor will also be punished.
The scandal is seen as the severest of its kind in the air force in recent years, and is seen as especially damaging to the air force's reputation because it involves leadership at a radar control and reporting center.
Such centers are considered the air force's most important command centers after the service's operation command.
The air force operates four such centers, located in Taipei's Yangmingshan, Hsinchu's Leshan, Kaohsiung's Takangshan and Hualien's Meilunshan.
The centers play a vital role in the collection and transmission of radar data, forming a nationwide network under the control of the operations command.
The air force's operations command is the military's de facto strategic command. Both the army and the navy rely on it for data on distant targets.
The four centers have been shrouded in mystery for years, though the Yangmingshan center was once opened to the press several years ago.
The colonel involved in the incident was one of the center's highest-ranking officers.
The colonel, surnamed Yu, might be relieved of his post or be forced to retire early for serious violations of military codes of conduct.
The codes of conduct forbid service members from going to "unhealthy establishments."
"Yu did not go [to the establishment] by himself," an air force official said of the incident. "He brought two subordinate female officers with him. These two officers are at the rank of captain."
"We are curious to know why the colonel brought the two female officers. We also wonder why the two women did not object," he said.
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