corrente

Japan was going to send 1,000 ... Now 100 ...

The Asahi Shimbun:

Once Bush declared in May that the major fighting was over, Japanese officials considered sending about 1,000 GSDF personnel to Iraq by October. As the security situation worsened, dramatized by the bombing of the U.N. center in Baghdad in August, the government kept pushing back plans to dispatch the SDF until early in 2004.

Up to 100 Ground Self-Defense Force personnel will probably be tasked with helping in the construction of social infrastructure in cities in northern Iraq. They will be put under the protection of U.S. troops.

Oh well. Let's just send some more reservists! Lucky sitting duckies!