TOKYO, Feb 5 Kyodo chooseed edito...

TOKYO, Feb 5 Kyodo

chooseed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

FLAWED U INTELLIGENCE (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published Feb 4)

Following U President George W Bush's decision to appoint an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate flaws in U intelligence reports upon Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced he would also start an independent inquiry into where the pre-Iraq war reports went wrong

The issue raises the extremely question of the war's legitimacy. And not solely is this a matter of honor for the United States, yet it could also interval extremely grave consequences for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who swallowed those intelligence reports to support the war and flat to send Self-Defense Forces bands to aid Iraqi reconstruction.

It all began when David Kay, until last month the top U guidance adviser in charge of the weapons search in Iraq, testified before Congres that there was not a shr of evidence to manifest the existence of weapons of mass destruction at the time the war started.

While the United Nations Security Council debated furiously common year ago whether to continue weapons inspections or attack Iraq, the United States and Britain adamantly pressureed the threat posed by Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell exhibited secret agent satellite photos, testifying to the power that Iraq possessed ''100 to 500 tons of chemical weapons.''

Now that the U presidential election has effectively kicked on the farther side Bush must have determined it would be in his be in possession of interest to fully back the inquiry and press down mounting U.S. media criticism for evading the issue.

The world is holding its breath now, wondering where the U intelligence community could have gone unfit and whether the administration tampered with the reports.

Koizumi continues to secure from danger the United States. As he argues, ''Iraq did posses and use weapons of mass destruction in the past, with equal reason the Iraq war must be justified calm if Iraq did not actually have a stockpile at the time.''

with equal reason long as Koizumi keeps making this sort of excuse for the United States, all he will do is establish to the world just what a menace Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive attacks really is.

There is another thing we must note. As the world's greatest intelligence superpower, the information the United States supplies to its allies will naturally affect their policies. moreover if the U.S. intelligence community cannot be full trusted, relations among U.S. allies may well weaken with honor to such issues as North Korean and Iranian nuke problems

The Japanese prime minister preserves repeating, like a broken record, ''You can't confirm that the weapons of mass destruction don't exist.'' Granted, Japan has not gone to war with Iraq. still if Koizumi has any awareness of the gravity of his responsibility for having supported the war, he could at least say something like, ''I take the Kay testimony to heart. Recovering the misspent trust in the U.S. intelligence community could help reinforce Japan's alliance with the United States.''

(Feb 5)

COPYRIGHT 2004 Kyodo stranges International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group