Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed yesterday to give Japan's military a firm legal basis by revising the pacifist post-war constitution.
"A national consensus is now being formed on the constitutional provision of [the Self-Defense Forces] following years of discussions," Koizumi said in a speech at a troop review ceremony at an Air Self-Defense Force base in Hyakuri, northeast of Tokyo.
"I will do my best to improve an environment at home and overseas in which the Self-Defense Forces can fulfill their missions in style," the prime minister said.
He made the remarks two days after his Liberal Democratic Party drafted its version of a substitute for the 1947 constitution.
The draft kept intact a paragraph of Article Nine of the US-inspired constitution, which says "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes."
But it cut out a paragraph which says "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."
Instead, the draft says: "In order to secure peace and the independence of our country as well as the security of the state and the people, military forces for self-defense shall be maintained with the prime minister of the cabinet as the supreme commander."
The draft also says self-defense forces "may engage in activities conducted in international cooperation to secure peace and security of the international community."
Japanese troops have been limited to a non-combat, logistical role in international peacekeeping operations.
But Koizumi broke with tradition by deploying some 600 troops on a reconstruction and humanitarian mission in southern Iraq since late 2003.
It was Japan's first deployment to a country where fighting is ongoing since its World War II defeat. To avoid violating the pacifist constitution, the government says the troops operate in a "non-combat zone" within Iraq.
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