By Charles J. Hanley and Jae-Soon Chang (AP)
South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding that the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War.
A half-century later, the Seoul government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens' petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51.
Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.
"Of course the U.S. government should pay compensation. It's the U.S. military's fault," said survivor Cho Kook-won, 78, who says he lost four family members among hundreds of refugees suffocated, burned and shot to death in a U.S. Air Force napalm attack on their cave shelter south of Seoul in 1951.
Commission researchers have unearthed evidence of indiscriminate killings in the declassified U.S. archive, including a report by U.S. inspectors-general that pilots couldn't distinguish their South Korean civilian allies from North Korean enemy soldiers.
South Korean legislators have asked a U.S. Senate committee to join them in investigating another long-classified document, one saying American ground commanders, fearing enemy infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting approaching refugees.
The Associated Press has found that wartime pilots and declassified documents at the U.S. National Archives both confirm that refugees were deliberately targeted by U.S. forces.
The U.S. government has been largely silent on the commission's work. The U.S. Embassy here says it has not yet been approached by the Seoul government about compensation. Spokesman Aaron Tarver also told the AP that the embassy is not monitoring commission findings.
The commission's president, historian Ahn Byung-ook, said the U.S. Army helped defend South Korea in the 1950-53 war, but also "victimized" South Korean civilians. "We feel detailed investigation should be done by the U.S. government itself," he said.
The citizen petitions have accumulated since 1999, when the AP, after tracing Army veterans who were there, confirmed the 1950 refugee killings at No Gun Ri, where survivors estimate 400 died at American hands, mostly women and children.
In newly democratized South Korea, after decades of enforced silence under right-wing dictatorships, that report opened floodgates of memory, as families spoke out about other wartime mass killings.
"The No Gun Ri incident became one of the milestones, to take on this kind of incident in the future," said Park Myung-lim of Seoul's Yonsei University, a Korean War historian and adviser to the truth commission.
The National Assembly established the 15-member panel in December 2005 to investigate not only long-hidden Korean War incidents, including the southern regime's summary executions of thousands of suspected leftists, but also human rights violations by the Seoul government during the authoritarian postwar period.
Findings are meant to "reconcile the past for the sake of national unity," says its legislative charter.
The panel cannot compel testimony, prosecute or award compensation. Since the commission may shut down as early as 2010, the six investigators devoted to alleged cases of "civilian massacre committed by U.S. soldiers" are unlikely to examine all 215 cases fully.
News reports at the time hinted at such killings after North Korea invaded the south in June 1950. But the extent wasn't known. Commission member Kim Dong-choon, in charge of investigating civilian mass killings, says there were large numbers of dead — between 50 and 400 — in many incidents.
As at No Gun Ri, some involved U.S. ground troops, such as the reported killing of 82 civilians huddled in a village shrine outside the southern city of Masan in August 1950. But most were air attacks.
In one of three initial findings, the commission held that a surprise U.S. air attack on east Wolmi island on Sept. 10, 1950, five days befor e the U.S. amphibious landing at nearby Incheon, was unjustified. Survivors estimate 100 or more South Korean civilians were killed.
In clear weather from low altitude, "U.S. forces napalmed numerous small buildings, (and) strafed children, women and old people in the open area," the commission said.
Investigator Kang Eun-ji said high priority is being given to reviewing attacks earlier in 1950 on refugees gathered in fields west of the Naktong River, in North Korean-occupied areas of the far south, while U.S. forces were dug in east of the river. One U.S. air attack on 2,000 refugees assembled Aug. 20, 1950, at Haman, near Masan, killed almost 200, survivors reported.
"There were many similar incidents — refugees gathered in certain places, and there were air strikes," she said.
The declassified record shows the Americans' fear that enemy troops were disguising themselves as civilians led to indiscriminate attacks on "people in white," the color worn by most Koreans, commission and AP research found.
In the first case the commission confirmed, last November, its investigators found that an airborne Air Force observer had noted in the "Enemy" box of an after-mission report, "Many people in white in area."
The area was the village of Sanseong-dong, in an upland valley 100 miles southeast of Seoul, attacked on Jan. 19, 1951, by three waves of Navy and Air Force planes. Declassified documents show the U.S. X Corps had issued an order to destroy South Korean villages within 5 miles of a mountain position held by North Korean troops.
"Everybody came out of their houses to see these low-flying planes, and everyone was hit," farmer Ahn Shik-mo, 77, told AP reporters visiting the apple-growing village. "It appeared they were aiming at people."
At least 51 were killed, the commission found, including Ahn's mother. Sixty-nine of 115 houses were destroyed in what the panel called "indiscriminate" bombing. "The U.S. Air Force regarded all people in white as possible enemy," it concluded.
"There never were an y North Koreans in the village," said villager Ahn Hee-duk, a 12-year-old boy at the time.
The U.S. military itself said there were no enemy casualties, an acknowledgment made Feb. 13, 1951, in a joint Army-Air Force report on the Sanseong-dong bombing, an unusual review undertaken because Korean authorities questioned the attack.
Classified for a half-century, that report included a candid admission: "Civilians in villages cannot normally be identified as either North Koreans, South Koreans, or guerrillas," wrote the inspectors-general, two colonels.
The Eighth Army commander, Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, held, nonetheless, that Sanseong-dong's destruction was "amply justified," the AP found in a declassified document. Today's Korean commission held otherwise, recommending that the government negotiate for U.S. compensation.
A U.S. airborne observer in that attack, traced by the AP, said it's "very possible" the Sanseong-dong mission could be judged indiscriminate. George P. Wolf, 88, of Arlington, Texas, also said he remembered orders to strafe refugees.
"I'm very, very sorry about hitting civilians," said the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, who flew with the 6147th Tactical Control Squadron.
The day after the Sanseong-dong attack, the cave shelter at Yeongchun, 120 miles southeast of Seoul, came under repeated napalm and strafing attacks from 11 U.S. warplanes.
Hundreds of South Korean civilians, fearing their villages would be bombed, had jammed inside the 85-yard-long cave, with farm animals and household goods outside.
Around 10 a.m., Cho Byung-woo, then 9, was deep in the narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel when he heard screams up front, and saw choking fumes billowing inside. Air Force F-51 Mustangs dropped napalm firebombs at the cave's entrance, a declassified mission report shows.
"I ran forward and all I could hear were people coughing and screaming, and some were probably already dead," Cho recalled, revisiting the cave with AP reporters. His father flung the boy out the entrance, his hair singed. Outside, Cho saw more planes strafe people fleeing into surrounding fields.
He and other survivors said surveillance planes had flown over for days beforehand. "There was no excuse," Cho said. "How could they not tell — the cows, the pieces of furniture?"
Survivors said the villagers had tried days earlier to flee south, but were turned back at gunpoint at a U.S. Army roadblock, an account supported by a declassified 7th Infantry Division journal.
Villagers believe 360 people were killed at the cave. In its May 20 finding, the commission estimated the dead numbered "well over 200." It found the U.S. had carried out an unnecessary, indiscriminate attack and had failed — with the roadblock — to meet its responsibility to safeguard refugees.
The commission also pointed out that Ridgway — in a Jan. 3, 1951, order uncovered by AP archival research — had given units authority to fire at civilians to stop their movement.
Five months earlier, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea confidentially informed Washington that the U.S. Army, fearing infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting South Korean refugees who approached its lines despite warnings. Ambassador John J. Muccio's letter was dated July 26, 1950, the day U.S. troops began shooting refugees at No Gun Ri.
American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz reported his discovery of the declassified Muccio letter in his 2006 book "Collateral Damage." But the Army had learned of the letter earlier, during its 1999-2001 No Gun Ri investigation, and had not disclosed its existence.
The Army now asserts it omitted the letter from its 2001 No Gun Ri report because it discussed "a proposed policy," not an approved one. But the document unambiguously described the policy as among "decisions made" — not a proposal — at a high-level U.S.-South Korean meeting, and AP research found declassified documents in which U.S. commanders in subsequent weeks repeatedly ordered troops to fire on refugees.
In a May 15 letter to Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the then-vice speaker of Seoul's National Assembly, Lee Yong-hee, called on Congress to investigate whether the Army intentionally suppressed the Muccio letter in its inquiry.
Since targeting noncombatants is a war crime, "this is a matter of deep concern to the Korean people," wrote Lee, whose district includes No Gun Ri.
Lee, who has since lost his leadership position as a result of elections, suggested a joint U.S.-Korean congressional probe. Frank Jannuzi, the Senate committee's senior East Asia specialist, said its staff would seek Pentagon and State Department briefings on the matter.
In 2001, the U.S. government rejected the No Gun Ri survivors' demand for an apology and compensation, and the Army's report claimed the No Gun Ri killings were "not deliberate."
But at a Seoul news conference on May 15 with survivors of No Gun Ri and other incidents, their U.S.-based lawyers pointed out that powerful contrary evidence has long been available.
"The killings of Korean civilians were extensive, intentional and indiscriminate," lawyers Michael Choi and Robert Swift said in a statement.
In its 2001 report, the Army said it had learned of other civilian killings by U.S. forces, but it indicated they would not be investigated.
--In the first days of his presidency, Bush rejected advice from the CIA to wiretap Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2001 in Vienna, where he was staying in a hotel where the CIA had a listening device planted in the wall of the presidential suite, in need only of a battery change. The CIA said that if the surveillance were discovered, Putin’s respect for Bush would be heightened.
But Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, advised that it was “too risky, it might be discovered,” Suskind writes. Bush decided against if as “a gut decision” based on what he thought was a friendship based on several conversations, including during the presidential campaign. The CIA had warned him that Putin “was a trained KGB agent … [who] wants you to think he’s your friend.”
--Suskind reports that Bush initially told Cheney he had to "‘step back’ in large meetings when they were together, like those at the NSC [National Security Council], because people were addressing and deferring to Cheney. Cheney said he understood, that he’d mostly just take notes at the big tables and then he and Bush would meet privately, frequently, to discuss options and action.”
--Suskind contends Cheney established “deniability” for Bush as part of the vice president’s “complex strategies, developed over decades, for how to protect a president.”
“After the searing experience of being in the Nixon White House, Cheney developed a view that the failure of Watergate was not the break-in, or even the cover-up, but the way the president had, in essence, been over-briefed. There were certain things a president shouldn’t know – things that could be illegal, disruptive to key foreign relationships, or humiliating to the executive.
“They key was a signaling system, where the president made his wishes broadly known to a sufficiently powerful deputy who could take it from there. If an investigation ensued, or a foreign leader cried foul, the president could shrug. This was never something he'd authorized. The whole point of Cheney’s model is to make a president less accountable for his action. Cheney’s view is that accountability – a bedrock feature of representative democracy – is not, in every case, a virtue.”
--Suskind is acidly derisive of Bush, saying that he initially lost his “nerve” on 9/11, regaining it when he grabbed the Ground Zero bullhorn. Suskind says Bush’s 9 p.m. Oval Office address on the fifth anniversary was “well along in petulance, seasoned by a touch of self-defensiveness.”
“Moving on its own natural arc, the country is in the process of leaving Bush – his bullying impulse fused, permanently, with satisfying vengeance – in the scattering ashes of 9/11,” Suskind writes. “The high purpose his angry words carried after the attacks, and in two elections since, is dissolving with each passing minute.”
--Suskind writes in the acknowledgments that his research assistant, Greg Jackson, “was sent to New York on a project for the book” in September 2007 and was “detained by federal agents in Manhattan. He was interrogated and his notes were confiscated, violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights.” The author provides no further detail.
By Drew DeSilver
Struggling wood-products giant Weyerhaeuser said this morning it will cut 1,500 jobs at its Federal Way headquarters, as it moves toward being a smaller, more focused — and eventually, it hopes, more profitable — company.
The cuts will take place between now and the end of 2009, chief executive Dan Fulton said in a conference call with analysts.
By Mike Allen
A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.
Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.
Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.
The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”
The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”
=0 A
The Telegraph story by Con Coughlin (which, coincidentally, ran the day Hussein was captured in his “spider hole”) was touted in the U.S. media by supporters of the war, and he was interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”
=0 A
The Telegraph story by Con Coughlin (which, coincidentally, ran the day Hussein was captured in his “spider hole”) was touted in the U.S. media by supporters of the war, and he was interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"Over the next few days, the Habbush letter continued to be featured prominently in the United States and across the globe," Suskind writes. "Fox's Bill O'Reilly trumpeted the story Sunday night on 'The O'Reilly Factor,' talking breathlessly about details of the story and exhorting, 'Now, if this is true, that blows the lid off al Qaeda—Saddam.'"
According to Suskind, the administration had been in contact with the director of the Iraqi intelligence service in the last years of Hussein’s regime, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti.
“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justifica tion to invade Iraq. There is no link.”
The White House flatly denied Suskind’s account. Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, told Politico: “The allegation that the White House directed anyone to forge a document from Habbush to Saddam is just absurd.”
The White House plans to push back hard. Fratto added: "Ron Suskind makes a living from gutter journalism. He is about selling books and making wild allegations that no one can verify, including the numerous bipartisan commissions that have reported on pre-war intelligence."
Before “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism,” Suskind wrote two New York Times bestsellers critical of the Bush administration – “The Price of Loyalty” (2004), which featured extensive comments by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, and “The One Percent Doctrine” (2006).
Suskind writes in his new book that the order to create the letter was written on “creamy White House stationery.” The book suggests that the letter was subsequently created by the CIA and delivered to Iraq, but does not say how.
The author claims that such an operation, part of “false pretenses” for war, would apparently constitute illegal White House use of the CIA to influence a domestic audience, an arguably impeachable offense.
Suskind writes that the White House=2 0had “ignored the Iraq intelligence chief’s accurate disclosure that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.
“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justifica tion to invade Iraq. There is no link.”
The White House flatly denied Suskind’s account. Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, told Politico: “The allegation that the White House directed anyone to forge a document from Habbush to Saddam is just absurd.”
The White House plans to push back hard. Fratto added: "Ron Suskind makes a living from gutter journalism. He is about selling books and making wild allegations that no one can verify, including the numerous bipartisan commissions that have reported on pre-war intelligence."
Before “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism,” Suskind wrote two New York Times bestsellers critical of the Bush administration – “The Price of Loyalty” (2004), which featured extensive comments by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, and “The One Percent Doctrine” (2006).
Suskind writes in his new book that the order to create the letter was written on “creamy White House stationery.” The book suggests that the letter was subsequently created by the CIA and delivered to Iraq, but does not say how.
The author claims that such an operation, part of “false pretenses” for war, would apparently constitute illegal White House use of the CIA to influence a domestic audience, an arguably impeachable offense.
Suskind writes that the White House=2 0had “ignored the Iraq intelligence chief’s accurate disclosure that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.
“They secretly resettled him in Jordan, paid him $5 million – which one could argue was hush money – and then used his captive status to help deceive the world about one of the era’s most crushing truths: that America had gone to war under false pretenses,” the book says.
Suskind writes that the forgery “operation created by the White House and passed to the CIA seems inconsistent with” a statute saying the CIA may not conduct covert operations “intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies or media.”
“It is not the sort of offense, such as assault or burglary, that carries specific penalties, for example, a fine or jail time,” Suskind writes. “It is much broader than that. It pertains to the White House’s knowingly misusing an arm of government, the sort of thing generally taken up in impeachment proceedings.”
Habbush is still listed as wanted on a State Department website designed to help combat international terrorism, with the notation: “Up to $1 Million Reward.”
Suskind20is scheduled to discuss the book’s findings – and his assertion that the country has “diminished moral authority” -- in a pair of interviews by NBC’s Meredith Vieira on the “Today” show at 7:10 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“[B]y placing so much on its secret ledger,” Suskind writes in his final chapter, “the administration profoundly altered basic democratic ideals of accountability and informed consent.”
The book (HarperCollins, $27.95) was not supposed to be publicly available until Tuesday, but Politico purchased a copy Monday night at a Washington bookstore.
Suskind, an engaging and confident Washingtonian, writes that the book was “one tough project.” He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he worked from 1993 to 2000.
The White House said Suskind received no formal cooperation. He writes in the acknowledgments section at the end of the book: “It should be noted that the intelligence sources who are quoted in this book in no way disclosed any classified information. None crossed the line.”
Among the 415-page book’s other highlights:
--John Maguire, one of two men who oversaw the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group, was frustrated by what Suskind describes as the “tendency of the White House to ignore advice it didn’t want to hear – advice that contradicted i ts willed certainty, political judgments, or rigid message strategies.”
And Suskind writes that the administration “did not want to hear the word insurgency.”
Suskind writes that the forgery “operation created by the White House and passed to the CIA seems inconsistent with” a statute saying the CIA may not conduct covert operations “intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies or media.”
“It is not the sort of offense, such as assault or burglary, that carries specific penalties, for example, a fine or jail time,” Suskind writes. “It is much broader than that. It pertains to the White House’s knowingly misusing an arm of government, the sort of thing generally taken up in impeachment proceedings.”
Habbush is still listed as wanted on a State Department website designed to help combat international terrorism, with the notation: “Up to $1 Million Reward.”
Suskind20is scheduled to discuss the book’s findings – and his assertion that the country has “diminished moral authority” -- in a pair of interviews by NBC’s Meredith Vieira on the “Today” show at 7:10 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“[B]y placing so much on its secret ledger,” Suskind writes in his final chapter, “the administration profoundly altered basic democratic ideals of accountability and informed consent.”
The book (HarperCollins, $27.95) was not supposed to be publicly available until Tuesday, but Politico purchased a copy Monday night at a Washington bookstore.
Suskind, an engaging and confident Washingtonian, writes that the book was “one tough project.” He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he worked from 1993 to 2000.
The White House said Suskind received no formal cooperation. He writes in the acknowledgments section at the end of the book: “It should be noted that the intelligence sources who are quoted in this book in no way disclosed any classified information. None crossed the line.”
Among the 415-page book’s other highlights:
--John Maguire, one of two men who oversaw the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group, was frustrated by what Suskind describes as the “tendency of the White House to ignore advice it didn’t want to hear – advice that contradicted i ts willed certainty, political judgments, or rigid message strategies.”
And Suskind writes that the administration “did not want to hear the word insurgency.”
But Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, advised that it was “too risky, it might be discovered,” Suskind writes. Bush decided against if as “a gut decision” based on what he thought was a friendship based on several conversations, including during the presidential campaign. The CIA had warned him that Putin “was a trained KGB agent … [who] wants you to think he’s your friend.”
--Suskind reports that Bush initially told Cheney he had to "‘step back’ in large meetings when they were together, like those at the NSC [National Security Council], because people were addressing and deferring to Cheney. Cheney said he understood, that he’d mostly just take notes at the big tables and then he and Bush would meet privately, frequently, to discuss options and action.”
--Suskind contends Cheney established “deniability” for Bush as part of the vice president’s “complex strategies, developed over decades, for how to protect a president.”
“After the searing experience of being in the Nixon White House, Cheney developed a view that the failure of Watergate was not the break-in, or even the cover-up, but the way the president had, in essence, been over-briefed. There were certain things a president shouldn’t know – things that could be illegal, disruptive to key foreign relationships, or humiliating to the executive.
“They key was a signaling system, where the president made his wishes broadly known to a sufficiently powerful deputy who could take it from there. If an investigation ensued, or a foreign leader cried foul, the president could shrug. This was never something he'd authorized. The whole point of Cheney’s model is to make a president less accountable for his action. Cheney’s view is that accountability – a bedrock feature of representative democracy – is not, in every case, a virtue.”
--Suskind is acidly derisive of Bush, saying that he initially lost his “nerve” on 9/11, regaining it when he grabbed the Ground Zero bullhorn. Suskind says Bush’s 9 p.m. Oval Office address on the fifth anniversary was “well along in petulance, seasoned by a touch of self-defensiveness.”
“Moving on its own natural arc, the country is in the process of leaving Bush – his bullying impulse fused, permanently, with satisfying vengeance – in the scattering ashes of 9/11,” Suskind writes. “The high purpose his angry words carried after the attacks, and in two elections since, is dissolving with each passing minute.”
--Suskind writes in the acknowledgments that his research assistant, Greg Jackson, “was sent to New York on a project for the book” in September 2007 and was “detained by federal agents in Manhattan. He was interrogated and his notes were confiscated, violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights.” The author provides no further detail.
By Drew DeSilver
Struggling wood-products giant Weyerhaeuser said this morning it will cut 1,500 jobs at its Federal Way headquarters, as it moves toward being a smaller, more focused — and eventually, it hopes, more profitable — company.
The cuts will take place between now and the end of 2009, chief executive Dan Fulton said in a conference call with analysts.
His comments came as Weyerhaeuser reported a $96 million net loss for the second quarter, or 45 cents per share — wider than the Wall Street consensus of 23 cents per share.
About 2,500 people work at Weyerhaeuser's sleek, tree-ringed headquarters off I-5.
The U.S. housing slump has hit the company hard, both in its lumber and other building materials business and in its real-estate development segment. Weyerhaeuser took a $311 pretax charge in the quarter to write down the value of its homebuilding and land-related charges, on top of a $56 million charge in the first quarter.
However, Fulton indicated that=2 0he plans to hold onto both those segments in anticipation of an eventual recovery, though he said one likely won't begin until late 2009 at the earliest.
Instead, Weyerhaeuser has spent the past two years unloading businesses deemed "noncore." Just Monday it closed the $6 billion sale of its containerboard and packaging business to International Paper; after taxes, that sale should generate proceeds of $4 billion to $4.5 billion, much of which will go to pay down Weyerhaeuser's $7 billion-plus in debt.
The company sold off its Australian operations last month, and has put its shipping and rail lines on the market. It also dissolved its Uruguayan joint venture, leading to a one-time after-tax gain of $101 million.
But Fulton characterized those sales, and other moves that might be down the road, as "fine-tuning the portfolio," and indicated that the company's plan now is to get as much out of its current businesses as possible.
He also hinted that the eventual conversion of Weyerhaeuser into a real estate investment trust, while not imminent, was stil l on the table. He told analysts on the conference call that, with the company smaller and more focused on its land-based businesses, it could choose "the right structure, for the right reasons, at the right time."
One bright spot in today's report was the pulp and liquid packaging board business, which saw higher market prices.
Although those were more than offset by higher maintenance expenses and shipping and energy costs, the completion of most of the planned maintenance closures should mean "significantly higher" earnings from that segment going forward.
Weyerhaeuser also disclosed that it had earned $22 million in the first half of the year from leases and royalties on its mineral rights — largely due to oil and natural gas exploration on a tract of land it owns in Louisiana.
In late morning trading, shares of Weyerhaeuser were little changed from Monday's close of $54.56.
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