TOKYO (AP) - Japan ordered the withdrawal of its ground troops from Iraq on Tuesday, declaring the humanitarian mission a success and ending a groundbreaking dispatch that tested the limits of its pacifist postwar constitution.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the 600 non-combat troops - deployed in early 2004 - had helped rebuild infrastructure in the area where they were based, and he pledged further aid to Iraqi reconstruction.
The withdrawal was decided in consultation with the United States and other allies, Koizumi said. Defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga told reporters earlier in the day that the pullout would take "several dozen days."
I applaud the Japanese for standing alongside the coalition forces in the war on terror. They contributed in every way their constitution allowed them to. Certainly Japan deserves our continued friendship and protection as crazed madman Kim Jong Il in North Korea stirs up trouble in the western Pacific.
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