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Hey Libertina... do you know ANYTHING about the Japanese govt's constitution?

I'm elated that the Japanese kicked in millions of Yen, stood by our nation in multiple United Nations fights, provided staging assistance in the war on terror, and then made the first post-world-war-2 commitment of military force...

why are you attempting to paint their commitment as "nothing"???

Got another agenda?

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In Tokyo on Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda indicated the government has abandoned plans to dispatch SDF troops to Iraq by the end of this year due to the deteriorating security situation there.

''We could send the troops if circumstances permit,'' the chief government spokesman said. ''But they do not.''

Fukuda's remarks came in the wake of Wednesday's suicide bomb attack on Italian forces deployed in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah that killed at least 18 Italians and nine Iraqis.

South Korea, which has already deployed about 450 noncombat troops to Nasiriyah, ordered the troops to halt all activities until security in the region is fully guaranteed, South Korea's Joint Chief of Staff said Thursday.

Japan has been planning to send SDF troops to Samawah, also in southern Iraq, where the security situation is considered to be relatively better than the Baghdad area. Samawah is about 80 kilometers west of Nasiriyah.

The envisaged team consists mostly of Ground Self-Defense Force personnel. The plan is for the troops to provide Iraqis with humanitarian and reconstruction assistance such as electricity, safe water and help in building administration systems.

Under a specially enacted Japanese law on the SDF dispatch, the government is prohibited from sending the troops to combat areas in Iraq.