Japan: From Self Defense to Combat

The Japanese government and ruling party began to actively promote legislation for a special act on Tuesday which enables soldiers and troop carriers of the Japanese Defense Force to be dispatched in Iraq to assist U.S. and British forces.

The government and ruling party plans to submit the bill to the Diet on Friday and send soldiers to Iraq in August, at the earliest. In order to pass the bill, the Diet which ends on the 18th will be adjourned for about 40 days. On this, opposition parties including the Democratic Party are opposed but the registration of the new bill is almost certain since the opposition parties have fewer seats.

The special act enables land troops of the Defense Force to be dispatched to non-combat areas of Baghdad (South of Baghdad) in order to help U.S. and British coalition forces which have been maintaining security of Iraq. In addition, atomic, biological and chemical troops and 6 C130 carriers of the air force will also be sent to handle weapons of mass destruction such as biological and chemical weapons and transport relief goods.

Actually, the Defense Force has already been able to dispatch soldiers since the legislation of the cooperative act of the Peace Keeping Operation passed in 1992 and the special measure act on terrorism passed in 2001. However, this time, it is different. In Iraq, civilians still possess a significant number of guns and weapons, and security is extremely unstable. If gunfire breaks out, it can be interpreted as the `self defensive right as a group` according to the current constitution. Particularly, if any of them is killed during gun battles, the ruling party is likely to propose amendment of the constitution which prohibits military forces and war under the name of `protection of own people` opined by hardliners.

The New Conservative Party, the coalition ruling party, approved the outline that the government confirmed on Tuesday. “Security and Diplomacy issues are deeply related to national interests, so the opposition parties and ruling parties should eliminate walls and concur on these issues,” an official of the New Conservative Party said in an attempt to seek cooperation from opposition parties such as the Democratic Party.

Some executive members of the Democratic Party however, received reports from local Iraqi inspectors on Tuesday and opposed to the legislation of the bill claiming that it is not urgent to dispatch troops and security to Iraq as it is so unstable and difficult to distinguish non-combat areas.

During the meeting, an inspector pointed out that “even though election supervision and peace keeping operations are necessary, Japanese troops are not that necessary in Iraq.” On the security situation in Iraq, the inspector indicated that causalities are likely to occur if the troops are sent to Iraq. “There is nowhere safe. You can hear gunfire anytime day or night,” he said.

Hun-Joo Cho hanscho@donga.com