Japan's defense minister has said US President George W. Bush was wrong to invade Iraq and warned that Tokyo could not automatically renew its air force mission to the war-torn country.

The rebuke from one of Washington's closest foreign allies came hours after an embattled Bush used his annual State of the Union address to plead for public support to send more troops to Iraq.

"Mr. Bush went ahead in a situation as if there were nuclear weapons, but I think that decision was wrong," Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said Wednesday of the 2003 invasion.

Japan's former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, a close friend of Bush, strongly supported the invasion and took the landmark step of deploying Japanese troops to Iraq.

Koizumi withdrew the troops last year before leaving office. But Japan has continued to deploy its air force, which hauls personnel and goods into Iraq for the US-led coalition and the United Nations.

Kyuma, who has repeatedly criticized US policy over Iraq, said Japan had not decided whether to extend the mission when it expires in July.

"We must look very carefully at what the United Nations will continue to request from Japan. Just because the US decided to reinforce troops does not mean that Japan should do the same. It's not so simple," he said.

"What can Japan do to reconstruct Iraq? Is it impossible without Japan's (Air) Self-Defense Forces? We must look at the overall assessment to give a final decision," he told a news conference.

"If it is necessary, we can extend deployment," he said. "If we think we can entrust responsibility to the private sector, that is also possible."

The government quickly played down the latest attack on US policy from Kyuma, who took office in late September when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe replaced Koizumi.

"Minister Kyuma spoke as a politician," chief government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki said at a press conference.

"US authorities have already said that weapons of mass destruction didn't exist (in Iraq), so such a statement is nothing new," he added.

The Iraq deployment marked the first time Japan sent troops overseas since defeat in World War II, when the United States stripped it of its right to maintain a military.

Kyuma rejected Bush's comparisons of Iraq to post-war Japan.

The US president has repeatedly pointed to the alliance with Japan as proof that former adversaries can become allies.

"Just because it worked in Japan does not mean it would work in Iraq," Kyuma said. "It worked in Japan because the US left the emperor system."

US occupation authorities allowed Japan to keep Emperor Hirohito, although he was forced to renounce his divine status.

Kyuma this month became Japan's first defense minister since World War II after Abe's government pushed through a bill to give him cabinet status.

Previously, Japan had a "Defense Agency" with lesser rank than full-fledged ministries.

Kyuma reiterated that Japan was not going back down the militarist path.

"By upgrading to a defense ministry, everyone seems to have the illusion that ... Japan is becoming a military power," Kyuma said.

"However, it is performing under the government's limited budget" under which military funding is decreasing, he said.

"Also, if we maintain the current constitution, there should be no such worry," he said.

Abe is also seeking to revise the US-imposed 1947 pacifist constitution.

Copyright © 2007 AFP

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