Posted on 10/27/2005 8:02:21 PM PDT by Righty_McRight
WASHINGTON - United States and Japanese officials have agreed to allow the Navy to station a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Japan for the first time, the Navy announced Thursday.
Though American troops have been based in Japan since the end of World War II, the Japanese public has long been wary of a U.S. nuclear presence because of concerns about possible radiation leaks. The decision comes 60 years after the United States brought the war to an end by dropping atomic bombs on a pair of Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"The security environment in the Western Pacific region increasingly requires that the U.S. Navy station the most capable ships forward," the Navy said in a statement. The deployment of the carrier, the Navy said, will "fulfill the U.S. government's commitment to the defense of Japan, and the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East."
Nuclear-powered warships have visited Japanese ports more than 1,200 times since 1964. The Navy said the United States has provided firm commitments to the government of Japan regarding the safe use of Japanese ports by the nuclear powered warships, and it pledged to observe strictly all safety precautions and procedures.
This is the second deal to come to light this week between the two governments, in advance of high-level meetings Friday and Saturday at the Pentagon between U.S. Defense and State Department officials and Japanese military and foreign ministers. On Wednesday, U.S. officials struck a deal with Japan to build a heliport at an American base in Okinawa.
The nuclear-powered carrier would replace the USS Kitty Hawk, a diesel-powered carrier based in Yokosuka, Japan.
A Japanese Embassy official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Kitty Hawk, commissioned in 1961, is the oldest ship in full active service in the Navy and the only American aircraft carrier permanently deployed abroad. The new carrier would arrive in Japan in 2008, when the Kitty Hawk is scheduled to return to the United States and be decommissioned.
The Navy, in its statement, said the ship rotation is part of a long-range plan to replace older ships, while considering the "unpredictable security environment" in the Western Pacific.
It was not clear which nuclear-powered carrier would replace the Kitty Hawk. The Navy has nine active nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Another, named after former President George H.W. Bush, is being built.
Japan's prime minister was expected to discuss the deployment of a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Japan when he meets President Bush next month.
The Marine base agreement, which would close the Marine Corps Air Station, Futenma, and build a heliport at another base on the island, Camp Schwab, ran into opposition from the island's residents Thursday. Japan's defense chief predicted Tokyo would struggle to get their approval for the plan.
Critics of the U.S. bases support closing Futenma but oppose any new military construction. The agreement opens the way for high-level talks on Saturday in Washington on the broader realignment of the 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan, part of the American effort to streamline its military overseas and create a leaner, more flexible fighting force.
FINALLY! I bet the Navy side of the Pentagon is dancing tonight!
Note to North Korea, who according to them "we are still technically at war with".
Keep it up and you'll see a fully nuclear capable Japan.
The United States and Japan are allies.
IF they Kitty Hawk is coming out of Japan... and a nuke is going in... it has to be the Nimitz. The Navy has a habit of putting the oldest carriers there... Looks like my old ship is going overseas...
Looks like the Japanese will take a carrier for our Marines on Okinawa.
Hopefully 50+ years after the fall of Baghdad we will be having these same discussions about our bases in Iraq.
Everybody is in a hurry to leave. We should be endevoring to stay there just as long as we stayed in Japan and Germany and brought stability to those countries.
PING
That's too funny! Japan has radiation leaks out of it's own reactors almost monthly, including one in 1999 where workers were using buckets to transfer radioactive materials.
Japan * ping * (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
Ping
good point.... but I'll still put my money on the Nimitz... :)
Nimitz...hmmm. Wasn't he the guy who maybe led the USN in a long and bloody fight in the Pacific against an aggressor nation sometime ago. Can't remember who that nation was though. /sarc
Won't it be Ironic, Don't ya think! :)
More like a slap in the face to the Japaneese. I'm not sure thats wise if we want to keep a base there.
I don't know, the Nimitz is in San Diego, and, with the fall of the USSR and all of that, many of the east coast subs and ships have been moved to the West coast. When I was in Guam on the USS San Francisco, I saw many east coast based boats coming through on WESPAC!!!! They came from Norfolk to the Orient, because there is nothing in the Atlantic to do. I think it will be one of the Norfolk carriers that will move there, the Truman, or the Ike. But of course that is just my opinion.
Every time a nuke ship pulls into Japan (subs and carriers) there is always their version of the EPA taking samples of the waters to see if we are dumping radioactive water into their waters, as well as protesters that are always there, warning about the evils of US nuclear power, etc. etc. Of course they don't really look at the safety rating that the Navy Nuke program has compared to, say, their own horrible nuke power programs.
Very true, I forgot that....I guess that should leave out the Nimitz too, since he was the Fleet Admiral on ol'Miss when they surrendered to him. The San Diego ships are Nimitz and Stennis...the Washington ships are Lincoln and one other (I think), and let's not forget the Big E, which isn't due to be decommissioned until at least 2012 (her 50th year). Who knows......
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