Defense Agency chief orders dispatching GSDF advance team to Iraq

In a published statement on January 9, Ichida Tadayoshi, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat head, criticized Defense Agency Director General Ishiba Shigeru for issuing an order for the dispatch to Iraq of a 30-member Ground Self-Defense Force advance team in January and a major unit of the Air SDF in February. Ichida said as follows:

The dispatch order is an expression of Japan's commitment to sending heavily armed forces to overseas combat zones, the first such move Japan has made since the end of World War II. This reverses the postwar Japanese military policy and is a historical outrage completely reneging on the constitutional principles.

Pointing out that the advance team is part of the major GSDF unit to be sent to Iraq, assigned to prepare billets for the unit and assure transport routes, Ichida said that the advance team is exercising the first detailed steps for the SDF to assist the U.S. and British occupation forces.

Far from being sporadic, terror attacks are constant and it has become likely that the GSDF unit in Iraq will kill people and experience combat deaths of SDF personnel for the first time in the post-war period. The government order sparked off anxiety and anger among Japanese people, Ichida stressed.

Ichida criticized the government for blindly following U.S. policy even going so far as to renege on the Constitution.

He specifically blamed the Komei Party for playing as a major role in the government decision to send troops to Iraq. If the Koizumi Cabinet were composed of the Liberal Democratic Party alone, there would be less certainty for the government to implement the decision. However, backed by the Komei Party, the government is escalating its dangerous moves, Ichida stressed.

Ichida mentioned that the JCP is organizing street protests against the SDF dispatch in nationwide actions and that the party will use the ordinary Diet session starting from January 19 to urge the government to foil the SDF dispatch policy. (end)