Tokyo
Japan’s parliament voted this week to send soldiers to Iraq, after a wild shoving match broke out between supporters and opponents of the deployment. The Japanese people oppose the move by 55 percent to 33 percent, according to the latest poll. Japan’s pacifist constitution forbids it from taking military action except in self-defense, and legal experts said an Iraq mission comes right up to the line of what is constitutional. But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi insisted the troops would only help rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure and would not be deployed to areas where fighting is still going on. “We must fulfill our role in the international community,” he said. It would be the first deployment of Japanese troops to a combat zone since World War II.
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