July 13, 2003, 10:30
Japan's defence ministry is planning to dispatch three C-130 transport aircraft to airlift weapons and ammunition to Iraq from US military bases in Kuwait and Qatar, a leading Japanese newspaper has reported.
The ministry intends to send the planes to the Middle East after Parliament passes a bill allowing the government to send soldiers to help rebuild Iraq, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said, quoting defence ministry sources. Such a decision is likely to increase criticism that the bill, likely to win final endorsement later this month by Parliament's Upper House, is focused more on assisting US forces than on helping to rebuild Iraq. Defence ministry officials could not immediately be reached to comment on the report.
The bill, already passed by the Lower House, is the latest in a series of steps boosting the military that critics say is undermining Japan's pacifist constitution. It paves the way for Junichoro Koizumi, prime minister, to send about 1000 troops to Iraq in the near future, in what would be Japan's biggest foreign troop deployment since World War II.
The government recently said that the role of Japan's military, the self-defence forces, under the proposed law would mainly be related to the purification and supply of water in a reservoir near Baghdad's international airport, the paper said.
This month, according to Nihon Keizai, Washington asked Japan to help transport weapons and ammunition by truck inside Iraq to US forces. The daily said the defence ministry has apparently concluded, however, that it would be hard to meet the US request until Iraq becomes safer and more stable.
Tokyo has instead told Washington of its readiness to cooperate with US forces in the Middle East by providing air transport, the newspaper added. - Reuters
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