Prime minister was at a loss for words on Iraq's WMD during debate with JCP Chair Shii

Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro was at a loss for his words when he was asked on what grounds he concluded that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

That was during his one-on-one debate with Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on June 11.

The JCP chair cited statements the prime minister had made in his electronic magazine. In the March 13 issue of the "Koizumi Cabinet Mail Magazine" - posted a week before the start of the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq - Koizumi stated, "This is a question between the whole world and Iraq which possesses WMDs." On March 20, the day when the United States and Britain launched war, he wrote, "Iraq with its WMDs is threatening the world." In the March 27 issue, he said, "At issue is the WMDs possessed by Iraq."

Shii said that, with Iraq's WMD question unraveled, public opinion in the United States and Britain is pursuing those who are responsible for the war. The real issue here, he said, is that U.S. President George W. Bush led the nation to war by definitively concluding that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Shii quoted John Dean, former counsel to U.S. President Nixon who enumerated Bush's many remarks on Iraq's WMDs, as saying: "To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose'."

Stressing that this has an important bearing on what Prime Minister Koizumi has stated, Shii asked him: "On what ground did you conclude that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction?"

The prime minister answered, "(Like WMD) Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has not been discovered yet. Who knows if he is alive or dead? Yet you can't say that Saddam Hussein was not in Iraq. WMDs will be uncovered in Iraq somehow.

Shii stressed that raising suspicions that Iraq may have WMDs and conclusively declaring that Iraq possesses them are two different things. He referred to Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix's June 5 report to the U.N. warning that "it is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted for."

Then Shii stated, "Mr. Prime Minister, you are making just such a 'jump'."

Shii concluded, "What you have just stated is a parroting of U.S. statements; you are not qualified to talk about 'assistance' to Iraq." (end)