Koizumi encourages Air SDF advance team going to Iraq

Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro on December 24 visited the Air Self-Defense Force Komaki base in Aichi Prefecture to attend a send-off ceremony for ASDF personnel going to Iraq as an advance team to prepare for a full-fledged SDF deployment.

This is the first time for a Japanese prime minister, the highest SDF commander, to attend a ceremony of this kind.

Speaking before about 250 ASDF members, Koizumi said, "I am convinced that you will fulfill your mission, though I'm aware that the areas the unit will go will not be safe. Defense Agency Director General Ishiba Shigeru, Foreign Minister Kawaguchi Yoriko, and others also spoke.

The 40-member ASDF advance party left Japan on December 26 for Kuwait and Qatar in order to receive the ASDF unit for air lift from a base in Kuwait to Iraq by C-130s. Under the Special Measures Law for Japan's assistance in Iraq's reconstruction, which is actually aimed at supporting the U.S. and British occupation forces in Iraq, the unit will reportedly start operations from late January.

On December 24, about 100 people from Aichi's Japanese Communist and Social Democratic parties, as well as peace and democratic organizations, staged protest actions at the gate to the Komaki base.

They shouted, "The SDF is going to assist in the illegal occupation in violation of the Constitution; Deploying troops will not help achieve peace in Iraq." The prime minister had to witness the protest. (end)