An advance team of Japanese soldiers arrived yesterday in Kuwait for training at a US military base before they cross overland to Iraq on a humanitarian mission that puts the nation's soldiers in a combat zone for the first time since World War II.
The approximately 30 soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying military duffel bags, arrived on a commercial flight from Tokyo to prepare for a mission that has run into strong opposition at home. They filed into a waiting, chartered bus, which two US military 4-wheel-drive vehicles escorted out of the airport and off to an American base in the Kuwaiti desert.
When fully in place in Iraq by March, a 1,000-strong Japanese contingent will help purify local water supplies, rebuild schools and provide medical care in southern Iraq. They will carry arms for self-protection, but their role will be noncombatant.
Many Japanese oppose sending troops into Iraq, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's argument that Japan is fulfilling its international commitments hasn't silenced critics. Japan's defeat in World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are considered horrifying reminders of the devastation of war.
The prime minister is also building momentum for a historic rethinking of the constraints placed on the military by the war-renouncing 1947 constitution, written by the US. His party is drafting a revision of the document, which has never been amended.
Although Japanese lawmakers approved noncombat duties with UN peacekeeping operations a decade ago, Japanese peacekeepers never before have been sent into situations as dangerous as post-war Iraq, where guerrilla attacks are a daily occurrence. No Japanese peacekeeper has ever been killed.
The rest of the Japanese force could start leaving Japan this month. After training in Kuwait, Japanese soldiers could start arriving in Iraq in early February. About 600 Japanese ground soldiers are being deployed along with roughly 400 sailors and air force personnel.
A small military team already has flown from Tokyo to inspect the area in southern Iraq where the Japanese will be based.
On Friday, the commander of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, hailed the imminent arrival of Japanese humanitarian troops as a "tremendous contribution."
Sanchez said the US "clearly understands the limitations and the national guidance that has been given to the Japanese troops."
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