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Japan contemplates Iraq
conundrum
By Axel Berkofsky
With South Korea hinting at another deployment
of troops to Iraq, Japan too claims it is ready to take
on the Middle East, a move that seemed unlikely only
weeks ago, and one that may intensify the competition
between the two countries for the title of "America's
best friend".
Several weeks ago, before Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi's landslide victory in the
Liberal Democratic Party presidential elections, the
Japanese government announced it would postpone the
deployment of troops to Iraq, claiming that a mission
there was still too "dangerous".
Recently,
however, Koizumi has repeatedly insisted that Japan is
up to the job. Now it seems that the prime minister has
only to wait for the green light from his top diplomatic
adviser, Yukio Okamoto, who was dispatched to Baghdad
last week to meet with officials of the US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority.
Upon his return to Tokyo,
Okamoto, a long-term advocate of a more visible and
active Japanese role in regional and global security
issues, is expected to recommend the deployment of a
Japanese military force to Iraq. But before dispatching
a full Japanese troop contingency, the government will
reportedly send an "advance unit" of 150 Ground
Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq in December. The
deployment will be authorized by a recently implemented
law allowing the Japanese military to help the United
States reconstruct Iraq. The "advance unit" will be
stationed in a "relatively safe area" in southern Iraq
to prepare the deployment of up to 700 troops, the
government announced last week.
When fully
deployed, the troops will be charged with providing
medical and water supplies for US military and Iraqi
civilians. In addition, the Japanese soldiers will try
to provide electricity for hospitals and agriculture and
repair roads and bridges in southern Iraq.
However, it is still unclear how many troops
will eventually be sent off to Iraq over the next year
and beyond. The government spoke of dispatching a 1,000
troops this summer, but that number was limited to 700
last week. Then on Monday, the number rose again, this
time with the government hinting at a deployment of up
to 2,000 soldiers. Whatever the figure turns out to be,
Japan's military ultimately aims to increase its
visibility in the Middle East without getting too close
to the danger zone.
Initially, Japan had
promised to stay out of the Middle East until the
situation there quieted down. The attack on the Iraqi UN
headquarters at the end of August did its share to
convince the government that Japan's "pacifist military"
had better stay out of Iraq until the country turns into
the oil-exporting "model democracy in the Middle East"
the US has in mind.
"Only until the situation
stabilizes," Koizumi had promised his allies in
Washington, who threatened to send US Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld to Tokyo to find out what had
happened to Japan's "unconditional support" for the US
"war against terrorism".
Although Rumsfeld is
still scheduled to visit Japan on October 22, US
President George W Bush wanted to have his say before
Rumsfeld got there, so he got on the phone late last
month urging Koizumi to come up with cash and troops for
Iraq. The prime minister, as usual, in no mood to face a
degradation on the United States' list of best friends,
obeyed and initiated yet another U-turn in Japan's
security policy agenda.
Defense Agency chief
Shigeru Ishiba, however, admitted to no such pressure.
"We are not sending troops because the US asked us," he
said on Japan's Fuji TV, dismissing claims that Japanese
troops would not go anywhere if it were not for pressure
from Uncle Sam. According to Ishiba, Japan is planning
to send troops to Iraq "in consideration of Japan's
dependence on Middle East oil" and, he added, "because
of the need to improve the daily lives of Iraqis".
The prime minister's aides for their part have
started putting in some overtime drafting yet another
deployment plan to make sure that Bush can personally
thank Koizumi when he visits Tokyo on October 17 for a
one-day US-Japan summit. However, the final decision on
whether to deploy troops near to or away from possible
guerrilla attacks is expected to be made only after the
next general election, which is likely to take place
next month.
When troops leave for Iraq, the
government announced, they will not do so without a
crash course in Arabic on their CV and also not without
a couple of fliers in Arabic assuring the locals that
Japanese soldiers have come to help and not to fight.
Unlike South Korea's, Japanese troops are not up for any
combat and, as the government indicated, will be on the
next plane home should the going get rough in southern
Iraq.
South Korea's government, like Japan's
under constant pressure to become a full-fledged and
"worthy" US ally, seems less opposed to military combat
than their colleagues in Tokyo. That country already
dispatched a contingency of non-combat troops to Iraq in
April and is now hinting at the possibility of sending
"thousands of combat troops to Iraq", the Korea Times
reported last week.
South Korean President Roh
Moo-hyun, however, toned down his government's
enthusiasm for military action in Iraq only a day later,
maintaining that the dispatch of combat troops to Iraq
still depends on North Korea's willingness to desist
from running amok on the Korean Peninsula.
"The
most important factor with regards to a troop dispatch
to Iraq will be whether we will have positive prospects
and firm conviction on the peace and stability on the
Korean Peninsula," he cautioned. While neither is really
in place on the peninsula, there is still the bill to
pay in Iraq, which brings Japan once again back to the
forefront of US attention.
Washington is
reportedly "confident" that Tokyo will emerge as the
largest donor for Iraq's reconstruction at the Madrid
donor conference at the end of October. The Japanese
government apparently got the message and announced
plans to come up with US$5 billion between now and 2007
to help reconstruct Iraq. The Japanese government has
promised to pay between $1 billion and $2 billion to
rebuilding efforts next year, and beginning in 2005 it
will provide yen-based loans for Iraq in hopes that the
country can pay back the cash with oil revenues in the
near future.
The $5 billion total contribution,
however, might only be a drop in the bucket as far as
Japan's financial contribution is concerned. Some
commentators in Japan fear that Tokyo might end up
paying up to $20 billion for Iraq's reconstruction, and
many analysts refer to a recent World Bank proposal
asking Japan to come up with up to $30 billion until
2007.
While the World Bank seems to have big
plans for Japan, many financial analysts on the other
hand fear that the country's soaring bond-issuance
problem could jeopardize Japan's ability to come up with
cash for Iraq as soon as next year. A way to reduce
payments, more cynical observers suggest, would be to
send troops to Iraq, shed some blood and join the
Americans in their efforts to let others pay the bill
for preemptive wars.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times
Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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