Voices Growing for Iraq War inquiry in Japan

JAPAN AND THE IRAQ WAR/ Koizumi went ahead without consulting his Cabinet team

2011/02/21 - In August 2010, President Barack Obama declared an end to the U.S. military's seven-year combat operations in Iraq.

Nevertheless, the country's security situation remains as unstable as ever.

The Iraq War was supposedly fought for two main reasons: weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and connections with international terrorist organizations.

Even though neither of these situations actually existed, more than 100,000 Iraqis have reportedly lost their lives in the conflict.

In the Netherlands and Britain, probes into their countries' involvement in the war are proceeding at the behest of their respective prime ministers. Is the lack of a similar process acceptable for Japan, which supported the United States and was consequently complicit in the war?

In researching my 23-part series "From the abyss of the Iraq War," which ran in the vernacular Asahi Shimbun from July to September 2010 (November to December in the English edition), I met with various individuals in Iraq, Europe, the United States and Japan, who were connected to the war in some way.

Most of all, I came to realize the opacity of the Japanese government's decision-making process regarding the Iraq War.

"I believe it would be appropriate to support the United States should it resort to the use of military force."

So said Junichiro Koizumi, then Japan's prime minister, when he met reporters on March 18, 2003, two days before the Iraq War started.

Shigeru Ishiba, then chief of the Defense Agency, now the Defense Ministry, says this was the first time he heard Koizumi state that Japan would support the Iraq War.

"There had been no discussion of whether to support the Iraq War at meetings of Cabinet members," he says.

Even the then chief Cabinet secretary, Yasuo Fukuda, says he never heard Koizumi say explicitly, "We will support the Iraq War" before the conflict began. {continued}