The legislation stipulates that the operations by Japanese troops be limited to “noncombat” areas. In the parliamentary debate, however, Naoto Kan, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, asked, “Are there currently such places as noncombat areas in Iraq? If there are, please name at least one.”

“There is no way I should know,” replied Liberal Democratic Party prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, “but I do believe noncombat areas exist.”

Deputies from the Social Democratic Party and Communist Party opposed the law, reported Agence France-Presse, on the grounds that “the deployment would violate Japan’s pacifist constitution, put Japanese lives at risk and involve the country in the aftermath of an unjustifiable war.”

Koizumi announced that the troops will be sent as early as October. The legislation was “welcome,” U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. “We think that Japan’s ability to play this positive role in Iraq is a reflection of the kind of role it can play in world affairs,” he said.

Tokyo had originally offered troops from the Self Defense Force (SDF)—the official name for the Japanese armed forces—to provide “clean water to U.S. troops stationed at Baghdad International Airport,” according to the Japan Times. “To the surprise of the Japanese government,” continued the report, “the U.S. has asked the SDF to provide logistic support in Balad, 100 kilometers north of Baghdad and considered a tough area due to ongoing attacks there on American soldiers.”

Tokyo is not the only government that Washington expects to shoulder some of the occupation. A Multinational Division of 9,000 troops is slated to arrive in Iraq September, headed by Polish officers and comprising troops from Poland, Spain, Ukraine, and 14 other nations, reported Pentagon officials in mid-July.  
 
Paris calls for UN decision
U.S. President George Bush called on other governments to join the effort in a July 23 speech at the White House. Three potential contributors—Berlin, Paris, and New Delhi—have refused to supply troops without a resolution from the UN Security Council.

Masking French imperial rivalry with Washington under the UN umbrella, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told France-Inter Radio that “only the United Nations can bring the guarantees of reconstruction necessary for the full international community to take part.”

De Villepin made sure to congratulate Washington on the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein, sons of former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials used the July 22 incident to demonstrate their tightening grip on the country, and to sow fear among those organizing daily attacks on the occupying forces of U.S. and British imperialism.The two men were slain in a firefight with U.S. soldiers in the northern city of Mosul. Acting on a tip from an Iraqi informant, troops of the 101st Airborne surrounded the villa where they were staying and fired heavy machine guns, helicopter-launched rockets, and 10 anti-tank missiles.

U.S. officials paraded both bodies before the media July 24, and then again the next day, after military medical personnel had touched them up, rendering them more recognizable. “This is a great day for the new Iraq,” crowed British prime minister Anthony Blair. Paul Bremer, Washington’s top civilian administrator in the country, said, “I hope this will encourage other Iraqis to come forward now.”

The Wall Street Journal praised the occupation regime’s use of informants to find the whereabouts of top figures in the former Baathist regime. The 101st Airborne had shifted from “standoff assault to classic counterinsurgency that seeks to win the support of the Iraqi public,” it stated in a July 23 editorial. “The coalition has more than enough firepower,” added the big-business daily. “What it needs to defeat the insurgency is good information.”  
 
New Iraqi militia
The Journal also supported recent moves by the occupying authorities to recruit and train an imperialist-dominated Iraqi militia as cannon fodder. “Many recent casualties have come because GIs are doing jobs that could be done by Iraqis themselves, such as guarding banks and key buildings,” it stated. “U.S. forces, the best in the world, are better reserved for more vital military missions.”

State Department officials said they would pay the informant a $30 million reward and provide him or her with asylum in the United States “if it’s appropriate.” Washington has slapped a reward of $25 million on the head of Saddam Hussein.

On July 24 U.S. Vice-President Richard Cheney defended the administration’s conduct of the Iraqi occupation against Democratic Party and other politicians and pundits in the United States who offer many criticisms but no alternative course.

Cheney continued to insist that Saddam Hussein’s regime had been developing biological and nuclear weapons, in spite of the lack of evidence for that position turned up by the occupying forces. The vice-president placed strong emphasis on other justifications for the war, however.

Against those who say that the “war on terror” should prioritize other targets, he said, “The terrorists intend to strike America again. One by one, in every corner of the world, we will hunt the terrorists down and destroy them. In Iraq, we took another essential step in the war on terror.”

Feigning concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people, Cheney added, “If we had not acted, the torture chambers would still be in operation, the prison cells for children would still be filled, the mass graves would still be undiscovered.”

Acting Army chief of staff Gen. John Keane unveiled the Pentagon’s plans to rotate fresh U.S. troops into Iraq at a July 23 press conference. Iraq-assigned U.S. forces, which presently number 144,000 with 30,000 backup troops in Kuwait, will serve one year at a time, he said.

Among the units that will head to Iraq is the Stryker brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division based in Fort Lewis, Washington State. The brigade’s 3,600 members will operate 300 Stryker vehicles—a “new high-tech…eight-wheeled 20-ton troop carrier,” reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “The Stryker is designed to fill the gap between the ‘heavy’ but cumbersome Cold War-era armored forces and the rapid but less lethal ‘light’ units, such as airborne brigades.”  
 
 
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