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Japan Completes Troop Withdrawal From Iraq NewsMax.com Wires TOKYO -- The last batch of Japanese troops touched down in Kuwait from southern Iraq on Monday, ending the country's largest and most dangerous overseas mission since World War II. About 220 troops arrived at Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base from Samawah, the provincial capital of Muthanna, on C-130 transport air planes, the Defense Agency said in a statement. The contingent was the last of about 600 non-combat soldiers previously stationed in Samawah to distribute water and assist in other humanitarian tasks. "Our ground forces have bravely completed their mission and have now safely withdrawn to Kuwait," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters Monday after the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. "We carried out our humanitarian and reconstruction tasks without firing a single shot — in fact, without pointing a gun at anyone," Koizumi said. "Our mission was very highly rated by the Iraqi people." Japan's defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga, who has been in Kuwait since Sunday, greeted the arriving soldiers Monday. The troops are scheduled to return to Japan in about a week, a defense agency official said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. "I'm very happy the whole contingent has arrived safely in Kuwait," Col. Toshihiro Yamanaka, who led Japan's final contingent to Iraq, said on national broadcaster NHK. "I was determined to carry out our mission safely, down to the last troops." Tokyo's troop dispatch to Iraq in 2004 — the country's largest military deployment and first to a combat zone since World War II — was authorized under a special law because the country's pacifist constitution bans it from taking part in warfare. Story Continues Below
Troop activities in Iraq were greatly limited, however. Assigned to a sparsely populated part of southern Iraq, Japan's troops were heavily dependent on Dutch, Australian and British forces for security, and suffered no combat-related casualties. Iraqi forces took over responsibility for security in Muthanna from coalition forces last week. Still, Japan's mission to Iraq signaled the country's eagerness to play a diplomatic and military role more commensurate with its economic might. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has proposed revising the pacifist constitution to delete phrasing that renounces the country's right to belligerency. Tokyo already offered logistical maritime support for the U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan's Taliban regime in late 2001. Koizumi, a strong backer of U.S. operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, has clearly stated he hopes the Samawah mission will lead to more overseas deployments. In addition, Tokyo is working on a joint missile defense system with the U.S., and is assuming more responsibility for its own defense under a broad reshuffling of the 50,000 American troops based in Japan. It issued the harshest warning to North Korea over recent missile tests, and it successfully spearheaded efforts at the U.N. Security Council to adopt the recent resolution condemning the tests. Japan is not completely withdrawing from Iraq. Tokyo plans to expand its Kuwait-based air operations to ferry U.N. and coalition personnel and supplies in Iraq. Tokyo's military involvement in Iraq has been unpopular with the Japanese public. Many say it violates the constitution and has made Japan a target for terrorism. © 2006 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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