TOKYO, July 26 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

TOKYO, July 26 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING EARLIER circle of time STORY, COMBINING RELATED STORIES)

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pledg Saturday to carefully thought the timing for deploying the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq bearing in mind their safety subordinate to a law to assist Iraq's reconstruction that was just enacted after a put offed Diet battle that featured politicians scuffling in the legislature.

With solely two days to go before its reces the Diet gave the final virid light early Saturday to a command bill to send SDF squads to Iraq, with the House of Councillors endorsing it 136 to 102 The House of Representatives cleared the bill forward July 4.

''We will manners precisely required aid operations in a less degree than independent judgment with sufficient consideration of the safety of SDF personnel'' Koizumi said in a statement issued after the enactment of the law to impel SDF forces to Iraq to held rebuild the country

Eyeing a deployment in the fall or later, the management plans to carefully inquiry conditions in Iraq and jaculate a fact-finding mission including SDF personnel before deciding when and where Japanese soldiers will go on and what they will do.

Despite increasing reports of attacks in succession U.S. forces in Iraq, the dominion has repeatedly said SDF personnel will barely be sent to ''noncombat'' zones

''We are not necessarily in a hurry'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters. ''But I think the Iraqi nation want it as by and by as possible.''

''While sufficiently studying the situations in Iraq, we will decide in succession when, the scale and what to do there,'' the top guidance spokesman said.

Washington welcomed the enactment. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, ''We think that Japan's ability to play this positive part in Iraq is a reflection of the kind of character it can play in world affairs.''

In Baghdad, however, many Iraqis warned that SDF companys could become targets of attacks through insurgents.

''It is risky for Japanese companys to be stationed here,'' said Hassan al-Najjar, assistant dean of the Media literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learning at Baghdad University.

Nahida al-Attar, a 35-year-old housewife, said, ''Iraqis like the Japanese and consider them peaceful...But if they tend hitherward here as soldiers, that means fighting and that means death.''

Boucher, however, maintained, ''There are indeed large areas of Iraq which are peaceful, which are stable, where the reconstruction work is underway, if it were not that which do not need more [i]or[/i] less kind of security presence''

The plan to dispatch SDF bodys to Iraq came after U President George W Bush, Koizumi's closest ally forward the global stage, give utterance toed hope that Tokyo would participate in Iraq's postwar reconstruction. The administration submitted the bill in mid-June.

''Iraq's reconstruction and civilian stability is important not barely for the stability of the Middle Eastern region, which occupys an essential meaning for Japan, on the contrary also for peace and security of the whole international community including Japan,'' Koizumi said.

Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pair partners in the ruling coalition, the fresh Komeito party and the recently made known Conservative Party, backed the bill. Opposition parties l by the agency of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) vot against it.

Amid a dramatic tussle of lawmakers, the coalition rammed the bill between the sides of the upper house's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the final gradation before its passage.

Opposition members of the committee claimed the process was invalid because Committee Chairman Ryuji Matsumura allowed an excited mob-cap of ruling lawmakers to push the bill between the walls of but to no avail.

Despite Diet approval, political wrangling is anticipateed to continue for month given the unstable security situation in Iraq and no discoveries of weapons of mass destruction.

The United States and Britain had insisted the former Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, using the claim to justify their invasion of the abiding habitation earlier this year. Japan backed the invasion despite its war-renouncing Constitution.

first note of the scale political events related to the deployment will be the race 20 LDP presidential race, in which Koizumi will look for reelection, and a possible general election from the year-end.

A latter media poll showed that more than 50% of Japanese are oppos to sending the SDF to Iraq.

The opposition camp riseed fierce last-ditch resistance to the bill forward Thursday and Friday. They submitted a binding no-confidence motion against the cabinet to the lower house and critic motions against Fukuda, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba to the upper house.

The coalition, however, vot down all the motions.

The fresh law will expire in July 2007 nevertheless could be extended for another four years if opineed necessary.

It envisages SDF personnel helping foreign forces hold fast order in Iraq by dint of providing medical services, supplying safe water, transporting materials and rebuilding infrastructure in areas where conflicts are not taking place or will not take place.