Mission accomplished in Iraq, says Japan

Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi today announced the withdrawal of 600 ground troops from southern Iraq, saying they had accomplished their humanitarian mission.

Mr Koizumi, in a nationally televised news conference, said the troops - dispatched in early 2004 – had helped rebuild the infrastructure of the area where they were based, and he pledged to continue aiding Iraqi reconstruction.

He offered no timetable for the withdrawal, but Kyodo News agency reported that defence chief Fukushiro Nukaga immediately issued a withdrawal order.

"Today we have decided to withdraw Ground Self-Defence Forces from the Samawah region in Iraq,'' Mr Koizumi said. "The humanitarian deployment… has achieved its mission.''

Mr Nukaga told reporters earlier that the pull-out would take "several dozen days".

The prime minister has been a vocal supporter of US policy in Iraq, arguing that the deployment was needed to aid reconstruction, secure oil supplies and bolster ties with Washington.

He is to travel to Washington for a summit with President George Bush next week, before stepping down in September.

Japan will now consider expanding air force operations in Iraq to include transport of medical supplies and UN personnel, following a request from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Takenori Kanzaki, head of the ruling party’s coalition partner the New Komei Party, he said.

“Even after the withdrawal from Iraq, we must continue the efforts to support Iraq,” he told reporters.

Japan has about 600 troops in the city of Samawah in southern Iraq. Although the mission is strictly non-combat and humanitarian, the deployment in early 2004 broke new ground as a symbol of Tokyo’s more assertive military policy.

The move to withdraw followed the announcement yesterday that Britain and Australia would hand over responsibility for security to Iraqi forces in southern Muthana province, where the Japanese troops are based.

Concerns have been high in Japan that the troops could be drawn into the fighting in Iraq, and the shift in security responsibility was apparently being taken as a chance by Tokyo to withdraw.

Mr Nukaga issued an order for the withdrawal to begin later today. The Yomiuri newspaper reported the target for completing the pullout was the end of July.

Polls showed half or more of the Japanese public opposed the dispatch, and many were concerned about the safety of troops in Iraq and the possibility that the deployment would make Japan a target of terrorists.

Critics also said the deployment violated the US-drafted 1947 constitution, which foreswears the use of force to settle international disputes. The Iraq mission followed a dispatch of Japanese ships to offer logistical support for military action in Afghanistan.

While no Japanese soldiers suffered casualties, other citizens in Iraq were targeted by militants demanding a Japanese withdrawal. Seven Japanese have been kidnapped in Iraq since the deployment, and two of them were killed.

Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda (aged 24) was kidnapped and decapitated in Iraq in October 2004. Militants claimed to have abducted Akihito Saito (aged 44) a Japanese security manager employed by the British company Hart GMSSCO. A later statement said he died of wounds suffered in an ambush.

Throughout, Mr Koizumi was steadfast in his insistence on continuing the deployment, despite polls that showed most Japanese were against it.

The harshest test of the policy came in April 2004, when three Japanese aid workers were kidnapped and threatened with death unless Tokyo withdrew. Koizumi refused. All three were later released unharmed.

Still, opposition was strong. A poll published in the national Asahi newspaper late last year showed 69% of respondents opposed to continuing the mission.

Nevertheless, Japan’s government in December extended the deployment for another year.