Japan PM Announces Iraq Withdrawal Plan

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced his plan Tuesday to withdraw troops from Iraq at a ruling party meeting, an official said, moving to end Japan's largest military mission since World War II.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of party protocol, said Koizumi told a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party that he would make a public announcement of the pullout later in the day.

''We've finished this chapter,'' Kyodo News agency quoted Koizumi as telling party executives.

Japan has about 600 troops in the city of Samawah in southern Iraq. Although the mission is strictly non-combat and humanitarian, the deployment broke new ground as a symbol of Tokyo's more assertive military policy of recent years.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I don't think so. While Japan has some territorial disputes with neighbors (Korea, China), there is no popular demand for military action. And while there has been a lot of heated talk about North Korea recently, there is no public outcry for aggression. The dispatch of 600 some-odd Ground Self-Defense Forces to Iraq is merely the result of one bu$h doing what the first bu$h couldn't-- force a pacified Japan to violate its own Constitution by sending self-defense troops to a war zone.