Suspicions deepen: JCP Ichida calls for ex-top defense bureaucrat to be summoned again for testimony

   Commenting on the testimony of former Vice Defense Minister Moriya Takemasa, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a press conference on October 29 said, “Suspicions about Mr. Moriya have deepened. His testimony has revealed two new major issues.”

   First, Moriya admitted that former defense agency director generals also attended the dinner parties at which Moriya was wined and dined by the former Yamada Corp. executive. “Cozy relationships not only between bureaucrats and the arms industry but also between politicians and the arms industry have been unveiled,” Ichida said.

   Second, Moriya disclosed that through communications with the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, he arranged for the United States to assert that the fuel the Maritime Self-Defense Force provided U.S. warships in the Indian Ocean was used in accordance with the anti-terrorism special measures law.

The possible use of oil provided by Japan in the Iraq war became a major issue in May 2003 when the captain of the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, which had taken part in the Iraq war, made a remark that the carrier received about 800,000 gallons of oil from the MSDF.

At that time, Moriya, who had contacted the U.S. embassy as the head of the Defense Policy Bureau, did not request the embassy to clarify if the amount of the oil was 200,000 or 800,000 gallons

   Ichida said, “Then Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo and Defense Agency Director General Ishiba Shigeru claimed at that time that the government checked with the U.S. and confirmed that the amount was 200,000 gallons. But Moriya’s testimony revealed that the government failed to do so.”

   “In order to properly investigate the issue, it is necessary to summon Mr. Moriya for testimony in the House of Representatives again and in the House of Councilors as well,” the JCP representative stressed and further called for the then vice defense minister and the then minister’s secretariat director general to be summoned.
- Akahata, October 30, 2007