Koizumi backs off on WMD
The Asahi Shimbun -- 11 February 2004
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, like his good friend U.S. President George W. Bush, increasingly finds himself painted into a corner over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.
Koizumi was anything but convincing in his responses to questions Monday in a session of the Upper House special committee on Iraq's reconstruction and military emergency laws.
``We cannot at present say firmly that Iraq does not have WMD,'' Koizumi said. ``The rationale for supporting the war has not been lost.''
However, perhaps realizing he was standing on shifting sands, Koizumi added that a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions that Iraq ignored was reason enough to go to war against Baghdad.
Koizumi's responses to questions about the rationale for supporting the war have undergone changes in nuance during the current Diet session.
He has increasingly referred to the United Nations to back up his reasoning for supporting the U.S.-led war. In a Feb. 4 Upper House Budget Committee hearing, he referred to the United Nations at least five times.
Last March, at the start of the conflict, Koizumi gave two major reasons for supporting the United States: Iraqi's suspected possession of WMD and the series of U.N. Security Council resolutions against Iraq since the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
More recently, however, Koizumi has avoided referring to WMD in depth. This has been especially evident since congressional testimony in late January by David Kay, who headed the U.S. weapons inspection team in Iraq and found no evidence of WMD.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair also faces an increasingly hostile and skeptical audience on this issue.
With one leg of his two-pronged argument supporting the U.S. action against Iraq effectively cut from under him, Koizumi has no choice but to stress the other leg in discussions in the Diet.
He has increasingly referred to the U.N. Charter, which allows the use of force in cases of self-defense and in response to U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Despite the recent change in his emphasis on the United Nations, Koizumi clearly places greater importance on Japan's alliance with the United States when presenting his arguments for supporting the war.
Analysts said a comment Koizumi made Jan. 27 at the Lower House Budget Committee probably demonstrates his feelings on the issue.
``The U.N. will not extend a hand of support if Japan faced a crisis,'' Koizumi said, indicating this country can only depend on the United States. (02/11)