TOKYO: Japan took its biggest stride yet from half a century of pacifism on Friday when parliament approved the dispatch of troops to support the US in Iraq.

The prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, overrode opposition, a no-confidence motion and a late-night filibuster to ensure the passage of the legislation, which paves the way for the country’s biggest military deployment since the second world war.

Never before has Japan sent forces overseas without a UN mandate. In the past 10 years, small numbers have joined the UN’s peacekeeping operations in Mozambique, Cambodia, Zaire, the Golan Heights and East Timor.

But no Japanese soldier has fired a gun in combat since 1945, nor have any of them been killed in action because they have been restricted to low-risk activities — such as reconstruction — in safe areas.

Under the new law, however, 1,000 personnel from the self- defence force — Japan’s army — will be dispatched into a conflict. Instead of being neutral UN peacekeepers in a ceasefire, Japanese soldiers will join a US-led occupying army trying to quell a guerrilla war.

Mr Koizumi has insisted that they will only carry out non- combat activities in “safe areas”, such as securing the perimeter of Baghdad airport.

But they are likely to be seen very differently in Iraq, where no area is free from risk. American officials have also made it clear that they want their allies to carry arms and ammunition.

Polls suggest that the deployment is opposed by more than half of the Japanese public. Support has eroded as US casualty figures have grown. Newspapers carry anxious front-page reports about the continued attacks and deaths in Iraq.

Under Article 9 of its war-renouncing constitution, Japan theoretically rejects the use of force to settle international disputes.

But Mr Koizumi and his predecessors have steadily eroded the significance of this document to allow the SDF to serve as a more active ally to the US. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.