Japanese premier defends invasion of Iraq

By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007.

TOKYO: Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe on Monday strongly defended the invasion of Iraq, calling Saddam Hussein a dictator who posed a threat to the region. Abe is seeking parliamentary approval to extend an air-force mission in Iraq amid growing international criticism of the war, with Britain's likely next premier Gordon Brown promising a new approach. "It is a certainty that Iraq once used weapons of mass destruction in its attacks against Kurdish people - its own nationals - and used them in the Iran-Iraq War," Abe said, referring to Saddam's use of poison gas. "We had to conclude it was a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East to allow the Iraqi dictator to have weapons of mass destruction (WMD)," Abe told a lower house committee. "They had a number of chances to prove that they abandoned WMDs, but they didn't." - AFP.