US Vice President Dick Cheney plans to spurn meetings with Japan's defense minister next week in protest over his having called the US-led Iraq war a "mistake," a news report said yesterday.
Cheney is to meet top officers in Japan's Self-Defense Forces during a visit starting next Tuesday but has asked Japan not to schedule any talks with Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, Kyodo News agency said.
Late last month, Kyuma told reporters the decision to invade Iraq was a "mistake" because it was based on the erroneous assumption that the government of the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Kyuma later backtracked, saying he meant that the decision to attack Iraq should have been thought through more cautiously.
"I did not say it was a mistake, but I thought at the time [the US] should have been more cautious," Kyuma said.
In Washington, Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Cheney, said the vice president's schedule was filled before he received any invitation from Kyuma to meet.
"He is looking forward to a full day of meetings in Japan, including meetings with the emperor, the prime minister, the chief Cabinet secretary and the foreign minister," McBride said. "This schedule was set in advance of receiving a request from the defense minister."
Japan sent ground troops to southern Iraq on a humanitarian mission after the March 2003 US-led invasion, but the Japanese contingent was pulled out last year. Japan currently operates airlifts in the region in support of the US-led forces, a mission set to end in July.
Despite US President George W. Bush's plan to boost troop numbers in Iraq, Japan will not hastily decide whether to continue providing the airlifts, Kyuma said.
Cheney, a strong advocate of Iraq's invasion, is expected to meet top Japanese military officials as well as US military officers based in Japan, Kyodo said.
Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS