Parliament to hold intensive talks on GSDF Iraq reports

April 6, 2018

Tokyo- The ruling and opposition camps agreed Friday to arrange intensive deliberations in parliament on the long-undisclosed discovery, called a cover-up by critics, of Ground Self-Defense Force daily activity reports on its 2004-2006 Iraq mission, which the government initially claimed were "nonexistent."

During a meeting of their parliamentary affairs chiefs, the ruling and opposition parties shared an understanding that the GSDF's failure to report the document discovery for more than a year, despite a disclosure request from lawmakers, is an "unprecedentedly serious incident."

While working to arrange a meeting of the House of Representatives Budget Committee for intensive deliberations on the matter, the ruling and opposition parties also agreed to hold several meetings of the Lower House Security Committee next week.

But the ruling bloc took a cautious stance on an opposition demand to summon related officials to give testimony on the Defense Ministry's denial in February last year of the existence of the GSDF activity logs on its postwar reconstruction mission in Iraq in response to an inquiry from lawmakers. It was revealed this week that the reports had been discovered in March last year.

The officials include then Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and then GSDF Chief of Staff Toshiya Okabe.

Meanwhile, the document scandal reached the Air SDF on Friday, when incumbent Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera revealed that similar activity reports by ASDF troops sent to Iraq in 2003-2009 have also been found, following a request for the documents from lawmakers the previous day.

It was the first time that daily logs on the Self-Defense Forces' Iraq mission have been discovered in an organization other than the GSDF.

The ASDF reports, covering three days and totaling three pages, were kept in electronic form at the Air Staff Office's operational support and intelligence department.

"This could turn out to be a serious problem affecting civilian control (of the SDF), depending on our investigation's results," Onodera said. "We'll fully respond to the people's suspicions."

"We're very worried about civilian control," Kiyomi Tsujimoto, parliamentary affairs chief of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters, arguing that there could have been organizational maneuvering in the Defense Ministry.

Akira Koike, head of the secretariat at the Japanese Communist Party, speaking separately to reporters, suggested that the ASDF may have tried to conceal the Iraq mission reports, given the possibility that ASDF troops engaged in dangerous operations in Iraq, such as transporting U.S. servicemen. "If that is the case, things are very serious," he said. Jiji Press