U.S. Agrees to Relocate Marines on Okinawa
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 27, 2005; Page A15
Deal to Move Air Operations Resolves Long-Standing Dispute in Alliance With Japan
TOKYO, Oct 26 -- Japan and the United States reached a deal Wednesday to consolidate U.S. Marine airborne operations on Okinawa, resolving one of the thorniest issues of their strategic alliance and laying the groundwork for a broader realignment of more than 37,000 U.S. troops stationed on Japanese soil.
The plan calls for relocating operations from the Marine Corps Air Station at Futenma -- located near a densely populated civilian area of Okinawa -- to another U.S. base on the island, officials from both countries said.
"There was a sense of emergency that not reaching agreement on the issue, a central part of the U.S.-Japan relationship, would seriously damage relations," Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.
Despite the accord, U.S. dismay at the pace of the talks was evident. The head of the U.S. delegation, Richard Lawless, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian & Pacific affairs, suggested Tuesday that the difficulties over such issues as Futenma had delayed a broader reshaping of the U.S.-Japan alliance. The United States has come to view the alliance as a cornerstone of regional security as China assumes a more assertive stance and North Korea is presumed to have become a nuclear-armed threat.
"We have to realize that we no longer have the luxury of interminable dialogue over parochial issues," said Lawless, speaking at a Tokyo conference sponsored by the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute.
"If we are to bring the alliance to where it needs to be in the 21st century," Lawless said, "then we need to dramatically accelerate, across the board, to make up for the time lost to indecision, indifference and procrastination."
The initial decision to relocate the air station was made in 1996, but negotiations were drawn out because of protests to the U.S. presence, heightened by the 1995 rape of an Okinawa schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen.
The countries are also considering a greater role for U.S. troops stationed in Japan to respond to hot spots throughout the Asia-Pacific region as well as an increased integration of Japanese and American forces. U.S. officials have been pushing Japan to take on a greater role in the alliance by bolstering its defense capability.
The compromise announced Wednesday was reached after U.S. officials dropped their demands for a new offshore facility in Okinawa to replace the Futenma airstrip. It would have been constructed on some of the last pristine coral reefs in the area, which drew fire from environmentalists. Japan, on the other hand, insisted on consolidating the operations at the existing U.S. Marine base, Camp Schwab, also on Okinawa. While American negotiators had long argued that there was not enough space at Camp Schwab, the compromise calls for adding reclaimed land off the base's shoreline.
The Futenma issue was so divisive that many here said it played into the decision by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to skip Japan on his recent three-nation tour of Asia. Lawless headed the U.S. delegation instead, extending his stay to complete the agreement before a meeting in Washington this weekend between Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and their Japanese counterparts on broader strategic issues, including troop realignment. Officials were also brushing up against another, more important deadline, President Bush's visit to Japan in mid-November.
The agreement has been hailed as a breakthrough, but many details have yet to be worked out. Particularly complicated is the question of where more than 3,000 Marines at Futenma will ultimately be relocated.
Machimura said that "thousands" of U.S. troops would be moved away from Okinawa. The U.S. government, however, has not yet said where and when those troops might go and has not dismissed stationing them elsewhere in Japan. Japanese diplomats have suggested such a move would be politically untenable given local opposition, saying the U.S. forces should be moved to Guam or the United States.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
US Military Retreats Over Japanese Base After Protests
US military retreats over Japanese base after protests by islanders
By David McNeill in Tokyo
Published: 27 October 2005
The United States has been forced to back down over its plan to build a large offshore military base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa after local protests stalled construction.
Washington and Tokyo had wanted to build a heliport and 1.5-mile runway over pristine coral reef more than a mile offshore, near Heneko village. But the plan enraged many locals on the small island, which already hosts around half of the 37,000 American troops stationed in Japan. Environmentalists joined the opposition to the planned base, saying it would destroy the reef, which is home to the dugong, an endangered species of sea mammal.
Richard Lawless of the US Defence Department said yesterday that a compromise, which will entail moving the new base to nearby Camp Schwab, had been agreed after considering "the importance of the Japan-US alliance".
Tokyo is an important ally in America's "war on terror" and Washington considers Okinawa, which is close to China and North Korea, a vital military lynchpin amid a major realignment of US forces worldwide. Japan contributes more than $1bn (£560m) a year and leases thousands of acres of land to US forces stationed in the country.
A congressional report released two months ago by the Overseas Bases Commission recommended maintaining current US troop levels on Okinawa. It said: "Diminishing our combat capability on the island would pose great risk to our national interests in the region."
Washington and Tokyo agreed in 1996 to build a new heliport to replace Futenma base, which sits in the heart of Okinawa's densely populated Ginowan City. The agreement had been forced on the two governments by the largest anti-US protests in Okinawa's modern history. The protests followed the kidnap and rape of a 12-year-old girl by two US Marines and a sailor.
But the Heneko plan, announced after years of tortuous negotiations, then proved deeply unpopular: a survey by the Okinawa Times-Asahi Shimbun newspaper last year found that 81 per cent of local people opposed it and dozens of mainly elderly protesters began blocking test drilling for the site 18 months ago.
The stalling of the plan angered Washington and is widely blamed for the cancellation of a scheduled visit to Japan this month by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Tokyo was keen to resolve the dispute before President George Bush's visit next month; a relieved Japanese Secretary of Defence, Yoshinori Ono, said last night that the talks had been "long and difficult".
Despite the climb-down, however, protesters said last night that they were angry that the base was going to be built in Okinawa at all. Many said that the move to Camp Schwab would still mean construction would take place up to the shoreline.
"Tokyo and America just completely take us for granted. If they want a new base, why don't they build it on the mainland or outside Japan altogether?" asked one of the protest leaders, Osamu Taira. "The only reason that they foist it on us is because they know we are small and powerless. We will protest until this plan is scrapped and the military is gone from here."
By David McNeill in Tokyo
Published: 27 October 2005
The United States has been forced to back down over its plan to build a large offshore military base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa after local protests stalled construction.
Washington and Tokyo had wanted to build a heliport and 1.5-mile runway over pristine coral reef more than a mile offshore, near Heneko village. But the plan enraged many locals on the small island, which already hosts around half of the 37,000 American troops stationed in Japan. Environmentalists joined the opposition to the planned base, saying it would destroy the reef, which is home to the dugong, an endangered species of sea mammal.
Richard Lawless of the US Defence Department said yesterday that a compromise, which will entail moving the new base to nearby Camp Schwab, had been agreed after considering "the importance of the Japan-US alliance".
Tokyo is an important ally in America's "war on terror" and Washington considers Okinawa, which is close to China and North Korea, a vital military lynchpin amid a major realignment of US forces worldwide. Japan contributes more than $1bn (£560m) a year and leases thousands of acres of land to US forces stationed in the country.
A congressional report released two months ago by the Overseas Bases Commission recommended maintaining current US troop levels on Okinawa. It said: "Diminishing our combat capability on the island would pose great risk to our national interests in the region."
Washington and Tokyo agreed in 1996 to build a new heliport to replace Futenma base, which sits in the heart of Okinawa's densely populated Ginowan City. The agreement had been forced on the two governments by the largest anti-US protests in Okinawa's modern history. The protests followed the kidnap and rape of a 12-year-old girl by two US Marines and a sailor.
But the Heneko plan, announced after years of tortuous negotiations, then proved deeply unpopular: a survey by the Okinawa Times-Asahi Shimbun newspaper last year found that 81 per cent of local people opposed it and dozens of mainly elderly protesters began blocking test drilling for the site 18 months ago.
The stalling of the plan angered Washington and is widely blamed for the cancellation of a scheduled visit to Japan this month by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Tokyo was keen to resolve the dispute before President George Bush's visit next month; a relieved Japanese Secretary of Defence, Yoshinori Ono, said last night that the talks had been "long and difficult".
Despite the climb-down, however, protesters said last night that they were angry that the base was going to be built in Okinawa at all. Many said that the move to Camp Schwab would still mean construction would take place up to the shoreline.
"Tokyo and America just completely take us for granted. If they want a new base, why don't they build it on the mainland or outside Japan altogether?" asked one of the protest leaders, Osamu Taira. "The only reason that they foist it on us is because they know we are small and powerless. We will protest until this plan is scrapped and the military is gone from here."
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Dot on the Map Regains Large Strategic Stature
Dot on the Map Regains Large Strategic Stature
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
January 28, 2003 in print edition A-5
TUMON BAY, Guam – In 1898, an intrepid Navy captain named Henry Glass boldly sailed his warship to this tropical isle and announced to the startled Spanish governor that the United States was taking control. The U.S. and Spain were at war, and the Navy needed Guam as a coaling station to support its fleet.
More than a century later, as the Bush administration threatens war with Iraq, Guam is once again a key factor in America’s ability to project military power in Asia and beyond. If there is an air war, B-52 and B-1 heavy bombers will probably be refueled in midair by planes loaded with jet fuel from three enormous tank farms run by the Air Force here.
And if those planes need more bombs, Guam’s cache of air-to-ground munitions is the largest in the region.
“Lots of things change in this world – weather, politics, economics – but geography doesn’t change,” said Adm. Walter Doran, commander of the Pacific Fleet. “Guam is where it is, and it will always be important to the security of the United States.”
Although the military downplays them, signs of a buildup are everywhere. For months, ships loaded with all the necessities of war – food, fuel, gear and ammunition – have been arriving at the Navy’s turquoise deep-water harbor. From here, beans and bullets are transferred to ships headed for the Persian Gulf.
Marines have trained here for street fighting at the new urban combat center, a complex of 200 buildings where troops learn the skills that may be needed if the U.S. offensive takes to the streets. Pilots from aircraft carriers have done numerous bombing runs on desolate Farallon de Medinilla island 188 miles to the north, the Navy’s only live-fire range in the western Pacific.
Still, for all of Guam’s centrality to the business of war, life appears calm on this self-governing, palm-tree-lined American territory 3,400 miles southwest of Hawaii. There is more talk about the aftermath of Typhoon Pongsona, which hit the island with 180-mph winds on Dec. 8, than there is of an impending war. Questions about a possible war are answered in confident, matter-of-fact tones.
“If the balloon goes up, we’re going to be ready to support a large number of aircraft and people flowing through here,” said Col. Joe Mudd, commander of the Air Force wing on Guam. “That’s what we do here.” That Guam remains central to U.S. military strategy shows how rapidly events have changed from what was anticipated after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
In 1993, the civilian-run Base Realignment and Closure Commission, assigned by Congress to downsize the military for the post-Cold War era, targeted facilities on Guam for a series of reductions and closures.
To many, Guam was seen as a relic of the days when the U.S. needed to be ready to engage the Soviet navy on the high seas. But even as the downsizing was being implemented, a cross-current in military thinking rediscovered Guam’s strategic position – just hours by air from most major Asian capitals – and the value of forward-deployed forces.
The result was that even as some facilities were being closed and the number of military personnel dropped by half, construction of new facilities was approved and new military units were assigned to the island. Guam, for example, will soon become home to a 250-person unit assigned to protect U.S. ships and personnel in foreign ports, a reaction to the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen, which left 17 sailors dead.
Since 2000, military construction on Guam has topped more than $300 million, with much more to come. Although nearly all of the projects were approved before Sept. 11, the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center confirmed the significance of Guam as a logistic hub, a way to reduce what the military calls the “tyranny of distance” from U.S. bases to the front lines of conflict.
Guam may never again reach the Cold War level when B-52s, ballistic-missile submarines and 10,000 sailors were stationed on this 212-square-mile island. But the idea of Guam as a backwater whose significance is waning has vanished.
“In my mind, Guam is going to be more important in the 21st century than it was at the latter part of the 20th,” said Doran, the fleet commander.
Talk like that is music to the ears of the officials on Guam, where a population of 160,000 is mired in double-digit unemployment. Devoid of manufacturing or agriculture, the local economy is dependent on the U.S. military and on Japanese tourists – for whom Guam is a low-budget alternative to Hawaii.
The U.S. cutbacks and the long slump of the Japanese economy have hit Guam like a punch to the gut.
Much of the island has a tumbledown look that ill fits the lushly green environment and sparkling beaches. Guamanian officials have encouraged the military to consider the island as a perfect spot to stage troops for the nation’s war on terrorism and possible conflict on the Korean peninsula, less than 2,000 miles away. A poll shows that 80% of the public agrees.
“All eyes should be on Guam after 9/11,” said the territory’s new U.S. congresswoman, Madeleine Bordallo. “Guam is not just the past. It is America’s future.” Bordallo has made military expansion her top priority. As Guam’s only representative, Bordallo has a vote in committee but not in the full House.
Support for the military may be higher in Guam than anywhere in the world where the U.S. has a base. Each year, Guam celebrates Liberation Day to commemorate the landing on Asan Beach by Marines in 1944 that ended a brutal occupation by Japanese forces.
Only after weeks of some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II were the Japanese routed and the native Chamorros freed from concentration camps and hiding places in the densely forested mountains. After the liberation, Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz made Guam his headquarters for the final year of war.
In a report circulated in Congress, the Guam Chamber of Commerce noted that Guam is “a slice of America in the Western Pacific
The Navy has stationed two attack submarines at Guam, with a third on its way. The Marines say that the urban warfare center is superior to those at Camp Pendleton and at Camp Lejeune, N.C. And at Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base, the 66-million-gallon fuel tank system is the largest the Air Force runs anywhere in the world.
The system, still not complete, has already paid dividends. During the first two months of the U.S. offensive against the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the base provided 21 million gallons of fuel for warplanes.
“We did a year’s worth of fuel in two months,” said Maj. Robert Gibson.
Not all the military investment in Guam involves planes and ships. In 1997, with the approval of Congress, the Department of Defense opted to begin its own school system for the children of 4,000 sailors and 2,000 Air Force personnel.
Dissatisfaction with the local schools had long been a major complaint of personnel assigned here. And so with a massive airlift of materials and manpower by Air Force C-5 cargo planes, the military set about renovating buildings for its system, which now has two elementary and two middle schools and one high school.
At Guam South Elementary-Middle School, students seem untouched by their parents’ preparations for war. But their young lives have been changed in ways they cannot see. Since Sept. 11, the school has adopted a code-word system to warn teachers of potential trouble. Navy police are on alert to respond. As the most remote piece of America, Guam lives with a daily sense of vulnerability.
“Sept. 11 left a deep mark on this island, no doubt about it,” said school principal William Hall.
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
January 28, 2003 in print edition A-5
TUMON BAY, Guam – In 1898, an intrepid Navy captain named Henry Glass boldly sailed his warship to this tropical isle and announced to the startled Spanish governor that the United States was taking control. The U.S. and Spain were at war, and the Navy needed Guam as a coaling station to support its fleet.
More than a century later, as the Bush administration threatens war with Iraq, Guam is once again a key factor in America’s ability to project military power in Asia and beyond. If there is an air war, B-52 and B-1 heavy bombers will probably be refueled in midair by planes loaded with jet fuel from three enormous tank farms run by the Air Force here.
And if those planes need more bombs, Guam’s cache of air-to-ground munitions is the largest in the region.
“Lots of things change in this world – weather, politics, economics – but geography doesn’t change,” said Adm. Walter Doran, commander of the Pacific Fleet. “Guam is where it is, and it will always be important to the security of the United States.”
Although the military downplays them, signs of a buildup are everywhere. For months, ships loaded with all the necessities of war – food, fuel, gear and ammunition – have been arriving at the Navy’s turquoise deep-water harbor. From here, beans and bullets are transferred to ships headed for the Persian Gulf.
Marines have trained here for street fighting at the new urban combat center, a complex of 200 buildings where troops learn the skills that may be needed if the U.S. offensive takes to the streets. Pilots from aircraft carriers have done numerous bombing runs on desolate Farallon de Medinilla island 188 miles to the north, the Navy’s only live-fire range in the western Pacific.
Still, for all of Guam’s centrality to the business of war, life appears calm on this self-governing, palm-tree-lined American territory 3,400 miles southwest of Hawaii. There is more talk about the aftermath of Typhoon Pongsona, which hit the island with 180-mph winds on Dec. 8, than there is of an impending war. Questions about a possible war are answered in confident, matter-of-fact tones.
“If the balloon goes up, we’re going to be ready to support a large number of aircraft and people flowing through here,” said Col. Joe Mudd, commander of the Air Force wing on Guam. “That’s what we do here.” That Guam remains central to U.S. military strategy shows how rapidly events have changed from what was anticipated after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
In 1993, the civilian-run Base Realignment and Closure Commission, assigned by Congress to downsize the military for the post-Cold War era, targeted facilities on Guam for a series of reductions and closures.
To many, Guam was seen as a relic of the days when the U.S. needed to be ready to engage the Soviet navy on the high seas. But even as the downsizing was being implemented, a cross-current in military thinking rediscovered Guam’s strategic position – just hours by air from most major Asian capitals – and the value of forward-deployed forces.
The result was that even as some facilities were being closed and the number of military personnel dropped by half, construction of new facilities was approved and new military units were assigned to the island. Guam, for example, will soon become home to a 250-person unit assigned to protect U.S. ships and personnel in foreign ports, a reaction to the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen, which left 17 sailors dead.
Since 2000, military construction on Guam has topped more than $300 million, with much more to come. Although nearly all of the projects were approved before Sept. 11, the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center confirmed the significance of Guam as a logistic hub, a way to reduce what the military calls the “tyranny of distance” from U.S. bases to the front lines of conflict.
Guam may never again reach the Cold War level when B-52s, ballistic-missile submarines and 10,000 sailors were stationed on this 212-square-mile island. But the idea of Guam as a backwater whose significance is waning has vanished.
“In my mind, Guam is going to be more important in the 21st century than it was at the latter part of the 20th,” said Doran, the fleet commander.
Talk like that is music to the ears of the officials on Guam, where a population of 160,000 is mired in double-digit unemployment. Devoid of manufacturing or agriculture, the local economy is dependent on the U.S. military and on Japanese tourists – for whom Guam is a low-budget alternative to Hawaii.
The U.S. cutbacks and the long slump of the Japanese economy have hit Guam like a punch to the gut.
Much of the island has a tumbledown look that ill fits the lushly green environment and sparkling beaches. Guamanian officials have encouraged the military to consider the island as a perfect spot to stage troops for the nation’s war on terrorism and possible conflict on the Korean peninsula, less than 2,000 miles away. A poll shows that 80% of the public agrees.
“All eyes should be on Guam after 9/11,” said the territory’s new U.S. congresswoman, Madeleine Bordallo. “Guam is not just the past. It is America’s future.” Bordallo has made military expansion her top priority. As Guam’s only representative, Bordallo has a vote in committee but not in the full House.
Support for the military may be higher in Guam than anywhere in the world where the U.S. has a base. Each year, Guam celebrates Liberation Day to commemorate the landing on Asan Beach by Marines in 1944 that ended a brutal occupation by Japanese forces.
Only after weeks of some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II were the Japanese routed and the native Chamorros freed from concentration camps and hiding places in the densely forested mountains. After the liberation, Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz made Guam his headquarters for the final year of war.
In a report circulated in Congress, the Guam Chamber of Commerce noted that Guam is “a slice of America in the Western Pacific
The Navy has stationed two attack submarines at Guam, with a third on its way. The Marines say that the urban warfare center is superior to those at Camp Pendleton and at Camp Lejeune, N.C. And at Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base, the 66-million-gallon fuel tank system is the largest the Air Force runs anywhere in the world.
The system, still not complete, has already paid dividends. During the first two months of the U.S. offensive against the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the base provided 21 million gallons of fuel for warplanes.
“We did a year’s worth of fuel in two months,” said Maj. Robert Gibson.
Not all the military investment in Guam involves planes and ships. In 1997, with the approval of Congress, the Department of Defense opted to begin its own school system for the children of 4,000 sailors and 2,000 Air Force personnel.
Dissatisfaction with the local schools had long been a major complaint of personnel assigned here. And so with a massive airlift of materials and manpower by Air Force C-5 cargo planes, the military set about renovating buildings for its system, which now has two elementary and two middle schools and one high school.
At Guam South Elementary-Middle School, students seem untouched by their parents’ preparations for war. But their young lives have been changed in ways they cannot see. Since Sept. 11, the school has adopted a code-word system to warn teachers of potential trouble. Navy police are on alert to respond. As the most remote piece of America, Guam lives with a daily sense of vulnerability.
“Sept. 11 left a deep mark on this island, no doubt about it,” said school principal William Hall.
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