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Japan reportedly hesitating on Iraq troops plan
Jordan Times, Wednesday, November 12, 2003
TOKYO (AP) — Gnawing safety concerns and new political worries may force Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to push back plans to send troops to Iraq, national media reported Tuesday. Koizumi had reportedly been hoping to get his Cabinet to sign orders by the end of this week to send an advance party of ground forces to southern Iraq next month to help with reconstruction and other noncombat duties.
That would have given him a badly needed token of solidarity to show US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who arrives in Japan on Nov. 14 for a three-day visit to confer with Japanese officials and meet US troops stationed here.
Koizumi has stood behind the US-led "coalition of the willing" since the outbreak of fighting in Iraq, but so far his support has been limited to justifying the war to an increasingly sceptical Japanese public and earmarking billions of dollars for humanitarian aid.
Washington may have to wait a little longer for a commitment on peacekeepers, several Japanese newspapers reported Tuesday.
The prime minister and his advisers have decided to put off a decision because of deteriorating security on the ground in Iraq and signs of eroding support for the deployment, the reports said.
Attacks on the United Nations and the Red Cross have served graphic notice that even humanitarian missions may be targeted. That has raised concern Japanese soldiers could find themselves in the line of fire even though their duties will be limited to transporting water, repairing war-shattered infrastructure and other relief work.
Koizumi is also reportedly reluctant to be seen rushing into Iraq after Japan's largest opposition party made impressive gains in national elections Sunday on a platform that called for nixing the dispatch.
The prime minister's conservative party and its allies still retained what is considered a comfortable majority in parliament, winning 286 of 480 seats in the more powerful lower chamber. Koizumi asserted Monday that the result was a "public vote of confidence" in his plans to send peacekeepers to Iraq.
But newspapers citing unnamed administration officials said the government wasn't ready to test that confidence right away. No decision will be made until sometime after a special session of parliament that will be convened Nov. 19 for the prime minister to take care of the post-election formality of re-appointing his Cabinet, the reports said. Koizumi's top spokesman waffled Tuesday.
"We are in the midst of reviewing plans and cannot say how soon we will finalise and approve them," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said. "We are, however, aware of the need for haste." The government pushed a law through parliament in July approving a dispatch on the condition that peacemakers be sent only to noncombat areas.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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