Japanese parliament clears way for troops to be sent to Iraq

THE Japanese parliament voted down a no-confidence motion against the cabinet of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday, clearing the way for final-stage debate on a bill allowing troops to be sent to Iraq.

Koizumi bowed a few times as the ruling coalition easily rejected, by 287 votes to 178, the motion tabled in the lower house of parliament by four main opposition parties earlier in the day.

The motion, which could have triggered the cabinet’s resignation or a snap general election if passed, accused Koizumi of “employing absurd sophistry” to defend the bill and also charged Koizumi’s reform drive had “completely faded” as Japan faces persistently high unemployment.

While his cabinet shrugged off the motion, doomed from the start because of the ruling coalition’s solid majority, the upper-house Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee approved the bill.

The committee’s approval was required before the Iraq bill, already passed in the all-important lower house on July 4, can be voted on by the upper house’s plenary session and passed into law.

Lawmakers had yet to decide when to begin the plenary session, according to a parliamentary official.

Meanwhile, the opposition camp submitted a motion demanding the dismissal of committee chairman Ryuji Matsumura so as to further delay voting on the bill. Motions to sack committee members must go to a plenary session.

Matsumura is from Koizumi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

If enacted, the bill will allow the first dispatch of Japanese troops since World War II to a country where there is ongoing fighting.

It paves the way for a reconnaissance mission expected to be dispatched by August, followed by a 1,000-strong rebuilding contingent in October.

The Japanese forces’ mission would be to help resettle refugees, rebuild facilities and provide fresh water and supplies. They are banned under the proposed legislation from providing weapons and ammunition for combat, but a government official said transporting such equipment from one place to another would be a different matter.

The opposition, including the left-wing Social Democrats and the Communists, insists the troop dispatch would violate Japan’s anti-war constitution, put Japanese at risk and involve the country in the aftermath of an unjustifiable war.