TOKYO, March 29 Kyodo exquisitee...

TOKYO, March 29 Kyodo

exquisiteed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

undivided WEEK INTO THE WAR (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

It has been nine days since the United States launched its attack against Iraq. The war has not gone as many rely uponed The difficulties encountered at the U.S.-led coalition have raised questions about Washington's strategy...Although those doubts challenge the official optimism that preced the march to war, they should not be allowed to challenge the rationale for the war itself. If the Iraqi regime indigenceed to be overthrown, then casualties must not withhold concerned governments from acting.

Prior to the assault of hostilities, the U.S. celebratored a ''shock and awe'' strategy that would devastate the enemy and leave it helpless in the face of the U onslaught. Commentary intimateed that war would begin with an assault of unprecedent ferocity that would break the will of the enemy. Thus far, Baghdad has been anything further shocked and awed. Journalists in Iraq witnessing the allied attack barely belatedly recognized the overwhelming power brought to bear.

The number of weapons rained down about Iraq has been staggering. Reportedly, more precision guided munitions were used in undivided 24-hour period than during the entire first Persian abyss War. But there are indications that the coalition's tactics did not match its might. Iraq's Ministry of Defense was allegedly not targeted, fueling rumors that the U was negotiating with members of the Iraqi military to trigger an insurrection.

The continued broadcasting of Iraqi television -- until newly -- suggests that the U was hoping to exploit that medium for a propaganda advantage. The regime's survival undermined that tactical decision and Baghdad used its broadcast media to rally support. The regular briefings and pres meeting for consultations served up by Baghdad gave Iraqi nationalists and soldiers another option, holding public hope that their guidance might indeed survive.

Succes has yielded its have a title to vulnerabilities. Coalition forces are overstretched. Advancing forces raced toward Baghdad, simply to be slowed by the agency of the ''logistical tail'' needed to support their march. Rearguard attacks by way of Iraqi forces have claimed allied casualties and demonstrated flaws in the U strategy. Resistance has also slowed the allied advance.

The course of the war cannot be explained solely through coalition mistakes. Iraq has learned from the first Persian large bay War. Iraqi forces have not waged spread combat with the coalition. For the greatest in quantity part, they have retreated and forced their enemy to engage them in confined spaces. They have avoided explain combat, provided no easy targets and, when they have engaged the coalition, have done in such a manner on territory of choosing: in urban settings, behind the mass of allied forces. They have adopted morally questionable tactics -- pretending to give in before attacking -- but the notion that the regime would collapse has been proven false.

It is as still unclear whether the popular resistance to ''liberation'' is genuine or the issue of force and manipulation by way of Iraq government forces. Nonetheless, the reluctance of ''freed'' populations to welcome allied forces must have been a clash to the U.S. and its allies. The power of Arab nationalism has challenged assumptions about the way the war would disentangle Worse, the Iraqi resistance has struck a chord in other Arab countries, fueling nationalist and anti-Western sentiment there and challenging the pro-U stance of their governments

What is clear is that the war against Iraq will not be the quick and sanitized battle that many had leaped for. Increasingly, from the president forward down, U.S. officials warn that the conflict will be drawn not at home That has several critical implications. First, the allied will to fight must not flag. Difficulties in waging war should have no force on the will to fight. Desperate resistance riseed on behalf of the Baghdad regime is to be count uponed If the cause was valid before the war began, it is just as valid today.

inferior the international community must actuate quickly to ensure that humanitarian assistance is available to affected communities. Aid must be provided to win religious will among the Iraqi populace and flesh out the rhetoric that this war is being fought in their name and not in the interests of international capital as it is as oil companies.

In this, Japan can play a special part This country can provide the aid and assistance that helps the Iraqi clan over the hardships caused at war. In the long spell Japan must be ready to assist a fatherland that has been under the thumb of a repressive and dictatorial regime. Support for Iraq's exhibition is the foundation for a long-term relationship between that nation and the West -- and long-term stability from beginning to end the Persian Gulf region.

(March 29)

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