Japan begins pulling out Iraqi airlift mission

TOKYO, Dec. 15 Kyodo - Japan's Air Self-Defense Force transport unit began withdrawing from Kuwait on Monday following the completion of its four-year-and-nine-month Iraqi airlift mission late last week, the Defense Ministry said.
The withdrawal will mark the end of the presence of Japanese defense forces in
Iraq for what Tokyo says was humanitarian and reconstruction assistance, which
began under the authority of a special law passed in 2003 in the wake of the
U.S.-led invasion earlier that year.
During their nearly five-year noncombat operations in Iraq, Japanese troops
sustained no loss of life.
Shortly before 1 p.m., Monday, local time, an ASDF C-130H cargo plane took off
from Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base, out of which the unit mainly operated,
with two more due to leave for Japan later, the ministry said.
An ASDF passenger aircraft is slated to return to Japan on Dec. 23 with many of
the unit's personnel aboard, while the cargo plane that departed Monday is
expected to return to Komaki Air Base in Aichi Prefecture on Friday.
Japan has attributed the ASDF withdrawal to improving security conditions in
Iraq and the expiration at the end of the year of a U.N. resolution authorizing
the deployment of multinational forces in the country.
But it also coincides with the inauguration next month of Barack Obama as the
44th U.S. president. Obama advocates an early withdrawal of U.S. troops from
Iraq and a shifting focus on Afghanistan in the U.S.-led ''war on terror.''
Using the three cargo planes, the roughly 200-member unit initially transported
personnel and supplies for Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force, linking the
Kuwaiti base and an airfield near Samawah, where the ground troops were
deployed from January 2004 to provide humanitarian and reconstruction support.
After the GSDF withdrawal in July 2006, they began ferrying personnel and
supplies for U.S.-led multinational forces and the United Nations, linking the
Kuwaiti base and three Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, five times a week.
The ASDF unit ferried some 46,500 personnel and about 673 tons of cargo on 821
flights from March 2004 to this month, according to the ministry. A total of
some 3,500 ASDF personnel took part in the mission.
After the GSDF withdrawal, the ASDF became Japan's only troop presence in Iraq,
where the United States and its coalition forces have provided security and
reconstruction assistance.
Arguably the first Self-Defense Forces dispatch to a ''combat zone,'' the SDF
operations in Iraq split the nation over the legality of such an act under
Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.
Last April, the Nagoya High Court found the Iraqi capital of Baghdad a combat
zone and ruled it unconstitutional for the ASDF to transport troops from
multinational forces to the city as it would constitute the use of force by
other countries.
Despite the ruling, Japan continued the airlift mission, asserting that the
judicial judgment is not binding because the reference to the
unconstitutionality was made only on the sidelines in the ruling.
Now that the ASDF withdrawal began, the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling
mission in the Indian Ocean has become Japan's sole involvement in the
so-called war on terror.
Japan could be asked to increase its contribution in and around Afghanistan
from its current refueling activities given the impending shift in U.S.
priorities to Afghanistan.
The ASDF's withdrawal of its mission for Iraq is planned to be completed by the
end of March.
==Kyodo