Shii on Iraqi situation

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on an Asahi Newstar TV political interview program broadcast via the communication satellite on March 9 talked about the present state of affairs in Iraq and JCP view of it.

Asked by the interviewer if he accepts the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces as an accomplished fact that cannot be helped, Shii said:

"If we ignore the logic and change our position into calling on the SDF to fulfill their duties since they have departed, we will become their supporters. We are not such hypocrites."

To the question about his view of the present situation in Iraq, Shii stated as follows:

"Recently. I read an interesting report on Iraq. It was a report submitted to the U.N. Security Council on February 23 by United Nations Secretary General on Iraq, based on a report by U.N. General Secretary's special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. According to its Iraq occupation plan, the United States sought to establish a provisional government by June 2004, and hold an indirect election of a provisional assembly that would prepare the establishment of the provisional government, along with an election through caucuses in each of 18 governorates and under the direction of the occupation forces. In short, the U.S. plan is aimed at setting up an assembly and a government that they can control.

"However, Mr. Brahimi has found out that the indirect election formula is unfeasible and cannot substitute for an election because it is alien to the Iraqi people. Thus, the U.S. plan to hold caucuses has failed. The U.S. plan to set up a manipulable government and station U.S. forces almost permanently in Iraq is now failing. The focus of discussion of the international community is how to shift the failed framework into a U.N.-led one.

Japan is dispatching the SDF in such unstable circumstances to join with the occupation forces, without any opinion of these developments. It goes against the intention of the meeting of foreign ministers of Iraq's adjacent countries as well as the approach now being seriously discussed in the international community.

Now that the occupation led by the U.S. and British forces has failed to such an extent, the need now is to change the track onto a U.N.-led one and make the occupation forces withdraw as early as possible." (end)