SDF dispatch plan must be fully discussed in the Diet and foiled: JCP Shii

Japanese Communist Party Shii Kazuo on October 12 demanded that the plan to dispatch Self-Defense Forces to Iraq be discussed at the plenary sessions and the budget committees in both Houses, and that the plan be canceled.

"The government should make public its official view on the plan before lawmakers and voters that will allow them to make a thoroughgoing investigation into the plan. Then the plan must be withdrawn," Shii stressed on a satellite TV program.

Alleging that voters in the general election endorsed the government's plan, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro is pushing ahead with the plan.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo at a regular briefing on November 12 stated that the government will stick to its plan to send SDF personnel to Iraq in December. (end)