Don't enact SDF dispatch law by obscuring WMD issue: JCP Shii

Now that Iraq's alleged possession of the Weapons of Mass Destruction has proven to be groundless, the Japanese government should not bulldoze through the bill to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo was speaking on July 16 at a press conference in the Diet Building.

As regards Iraq's WMD issue, Shii referred to a radio speech by U.S. President George W. Bush on June 27 showing a change in his excuse to launch the war from "possession" to "programs for weapons of mass destruction," and testimonies of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the July 9 Senate public hearing that the U.S. had obtained no new evidence for Iraq's possession of WMDs before the Iraq War.

Japan's Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro advocated supporting the U.S.-led Iraq War by asserting that the Iraqi possession of WMDs was an established fact. However, now that the U.S. government which started the Iraq War began to deny this reason for launching the war, the prime minister cannot escape from clearing his own responsibility for supporting the war, Shii stressed.

The government is trying to ignore the matter and yet is going to railroad the SDF dispatch bill through the Diet. The JCP is opposed to this and calls for the bill to be withdrawn, Shii concluded. (end)