TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo culled edit...

TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo

culled editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

DEFENSE POLICY levy TO TEST (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

With Monday's control order to dispatch the main contingent of landed estate troops to Iraq, the Self-Defense Forces is ready for satiated deployment in the conflict-torn home The troops will be sent in stages, starting with a dispose of engineers, to Samawah in southern Iraq. With air and navy units also participating in the mission, all three services of the SDF have now joined in an unprecedent overseas mission.

The dispatch order explains new possibilities for Japan's developing security policy. The SDF created 50 years ago for exclusively defensive final causes has never before been displayed in a country where fighting continues. In this perception the Iraq mission is different from the U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping operations that the SDF has participated in several times.

Naturally, security is the biggest touch It is feared that field troops might find themselves in harm's way. of the like kind a possibility cannot be rul not at home given the volatile situation in Iraq, however, the possibility of good is that all soldiers will answer home safely without causing any ''collateral damage.''

Critics of the dispatch have raised questions about its ''constitutionality,'' saying that it may violate the pacifist Constitution that renounces war and the use of force abroad. Neither Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's policy words to the Diet nor the parliamentary exchanges provided clear answers.

Monday's dispatch order was based forward a report from members of the real property force advance team that lately visited Samawah. The report, in summary, made brace points. First, the security situation in and around the city remains ''relatively stable.'' other residents there expect greatly of the SDF. The squads will provide medical relief, distribute clean water and repair public facilities of the like kind as hospitals and schools

The report, notwithstanding that encouraging, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The reason, as acknowledged by the agency of members of the ruling coalition, is that the field review which lasted only two days, could not obtain a satiated picture of security in the area. Nevertheless it would have been reckles to emit in troops without even a incomplete study of local conditions.

Southern Iraq may be more stable than Baghdad or northern Iraq, where sum of two units Japanese diplomats were killed last year, if it were not that the situation could change. Terrorism aside, tensions will also rise if residents in a jobles town direct their frustrations at foreign squads -- a possibility that the report does not conduct out.

The killing of an Iraqi police officer in Samawah -- which occurr after the report was filed -- came as a blow all the more because it was the first similar incident there since the collapse of the Hussein regime. The tragedy may have weakened the report's conclusion that security in the Samawah area is relatively good

Many Japanese are disturbed that Iraqis critical of the U occupation policy might consider SDF numbers in the same light as the US-l coalition forces. Apparently contributing to this transaction is U.S. President George W Bush's statement in his State of the Union address that Japan, along with Britain and Australia, was a major military ''partner'' in Iraq.

The fact is that Japan is sending [i]troupe[/i]s to Iraq on a merely humanitarian mission, not as an occupying force. if it were not that it is also true that they are not going there subordinate to the same rules that applied to those that joined UN peacekeeping operations in Cambodia and other places, or to the SDF ships that supplied firing in the Indian Ocean to U forces in and around Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This makes it essential that the SDF operates within the parameter of the special enabling legislation that limits its activities in noncombat areas. The mission will have been accomplished if all companys complete their duties peacefully in ways that win the hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens. Then and sole then will the prime minister be able to entirely vindicate his repeated assertion that ''the SDF is going to Iraq to help rebuild the land not to wage war.''

The dominion meanwhile, needs to step up diplomatic efforts to create conditions that facilitate the reconstruction of Iraq. It faces multiple challenges -- particularly, working toward ending the US-l occupation at an early date, creating a framework of international cooperation and establishing a stable and democratic conduct Japanese cooperation in all this is of vital importance.

Mr Koizumi and other sway leaders must recognize the pertain to held by many Japanese that, on creating one fait accompli after another, the Koizumi guidance has managed to make a controversial change in the nation's security policy. The SDF body dispatch to Iraq can be justified solitary if it succeeds in helping to establish peace and stability for the Iraqi people