Japan's Iraq deployment gets little airtime at home

When Japanese soldiers crossed over into Iraq Monday, it marked the first time the nation's troops entered a combat zone since World War II.

But the send-off for this 40-person advance team was not the splashy news event one might have expected. Television coverage was mostly limited to file footage and bland announcements of equipment details by officials.

The initial low-key coverage partly reflects the Japanese public's ambivalence over the deployment, which the government has linked to larger goals of moving the nation from pacifism toward an embrace of military commitments. Alluding to stinging international criticism of "checkbook diplomacy" during the first Gulf War, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Monday, "We won't have fulfilled our responsibility as a member of the international community if we contribute materially and leave the manpower contribution up to other countries."

But while Mr. Koizumi presses his Iraq case, the Defense Agency is working to mute media coverage of the deployment by asking Japanese journalists to leave Iraq.

The Japan Defense Agency last week asked that all Japanese media "depart immediately from Iraq and give serious consideration whether or not to travel to Kuwait."

Analysts see the clampdown as a threat to recent reform efforts by a press corps hampered by tight controls on information. The government's request would force the Japanese media to rely on foreign news sources - a habit that Japanese journalists are striving to break, says Susan Kreifels, a media expert at the East-West Center in Hawaii. Japanese journalists are growing increasingly committed to sourcing their own work and recognizing the right to freedom of speech, she says.

So far, the Japanese press in Iraq appear to be staying. Reuters reported that about 100 Japanese journalists arrived in Samawah in advance of the soldiers.

"As a focus point of international developments, Japanese are extremely interested in events in Iraq, and we plan to continue reporting from there," said a spokesman for the Asahi Shimbun, a major daily with a half dozen journalists in the war-torn country. Another major daily, the Mainichi Shimbun, said "we plan to keep our two correspondents in Iraq" regardless of the agency's request.

The Defense Agency had backed up its request by threatening a total blackout if any problems arise. "If the media are deemed an obstacle to the smooth implementation of the mission's tasks... we will refuse all coverage," the agency said in a statement.

Last year, the government was forced by pressure from local media organizations to amend a series of bills concerning personal information that, if passed in their original form, could have infringed press freedoms.

"There has always been concern that Japanese journalists rely too much on government sources - but that goes for journalists everywhere," says Kreifels.

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