GSDF Iraq logs include security analysis

April 15, 2018

Tokyo- Recently discovered daily activity logs of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force's past mission in Iraq include analysis of security conditions in areas where GSDF troops operated and the whole of the Middle Eastern country, informed sources told Jiji Press on Sunday.

The Defense Ministry is expected to publicize the logs, totaling more than 14,000 pages for 435 days, as early as this week. Previously, the government said no such documents existed.

The logs reportedly include words that indicate combat. The focus is whether the words are included in the logs' descriptions of Samawah, southern Iraq, and other areas where a total of 5,500 GSDF troops operated in their reconstruction mission between January 2004 and July 2006.

During the mission, SDF members were also deployed as liaison officers to the headquarters of the multinational forces' command in Baghdad and an airfield in Basra, where heavy fighting occurred at the time.

The GSDF mission included medical and water supply and rebuilding of schools and other public facilities.

Opposition lawmakers at the time argued that the GSDF mission violated Japan's war-renouncing constitution, suspecting that its troops operated in combat areas. The government explained that their activities were limited to noncombat areas.

The sources said the logs include analysis of Muthanna province that includes Samawah. At the time of the mission, the government said the security situation in Samawah was relatively stable.

During the mission in Samawah, the GSDF's camp faced shelling more than 10 times, and a GSDF convoy was struck by a roadside bomb.

The logs are also believed to include the description of a militia which follows influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.

In addition to the GSDF troops, a total of about 3,500 Air SDF members were dispatched in an Iraq reconstruction mission between December 2003 and December 2008 to transport U.N. and multinational forces personnel and supplies between Kuwait and Iraq using C-130 aircraft. Jiji Press