Marines' move would be slowed without Futemma relocation: Lawless

Japan Policy & Politics, Nov 14, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 Kyodo

Tokyo and Washington have set 2012 as the time by which they will implement all agreed plans on realigning the U.S. military presence in Japan, a senior U.S. defense official said Tuesday.

Under the plans, Tokyo will get more responsibility for security in the Pacific and 6,000 Marine Corps troops will move from Okinawa to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

Asked in an interview whether the agreed reduction in the number of Marines in Japan could happen without the Futemma Marine Corps Air Station being relocated within Okinawa, U.S. Defense Deputy Undersecretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless said, ''I think it would be dramatically slowed and reduced.''

''It is an integrated undertaking,'' Lawless said, stressing the need to implement all the plans, which include building facilities in Guam to house the Marines moving from Okinawa, as they are all part of a ''big moving piece.''

Japan has committed to paying the costs of building the Guam facilities, which Lawless indicated will come to around $4 billion.

Lawless said the Oct. 29 bilateral agreement calls for reducing the number of Marines stationed in Okinawa from 18,000 to a ''net assigned number'' of about 11,000.

It calls for moving a total of 7,000 Marines from Okinawa -- 1,000 to elsewhere in Japan and 6,000 to Guam -- and for relocating the functions of the Futemma base to Camp Schwab in Nago.

About 50,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan. Around half of them are in Okinawa, where locals complain of crime, crowding and noise in connection with the U.S. bases.

Lawless said Tokyo has committed to convincing the Okinawa communities in connection with the common goal.

''The goal is to complete everything in six years,'' Lawless said. ''That means that people will have to complete their plans, begin spending money in 2006, if we want to complete this in 2012.''

Lawless made the comments in making it clear that the agreement does not allow the Japanese government to sideline the Futemma relocation as it stalled the nine-year-old original plan and seek only to gain the troop reduction and planned consolidation of U.S. military facilities south of the U.S. Kadena Air Base.

''So we can't have one without the other,'' he said.

Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine and other local authorities have criticized the plans and vowed resistance.

Asked if the new Futemma plan is feasible with such opposition, Lawless said, ''The Japanese government has a high level of confidence and that is why we accepted this particular proposal that this particular facility can be built in this particular location on a reasonably quick timeline.''

''So this simply requires national will,'' he said.

Lawless brushed off some estimates that the construction of the Futemma relocation facility will require at least eight years -- three for environmental assessment and five for construction.

''We don't necessarily think it will take that long,'' he said.

Maintaining that the 2012 goal is achievable, Lawless said, ''It is all part of a big moving piece that we are going to try to do at the same time...But we can't very well relocate the Marines unless we are completing the relocation of Futemma and converting the current capability into our future capability.''

Lawless ruled out the possibility of Tokyo and Washington making major changes to the Oct. 29 report.

The report is not an interim one, Lawless said, noting the two countries are to compile implementation plans by next March -- a target date set in the report for the next step.

''The document is meant to convey agreement in principle and commit both sides to working out all the implementation details by March 2006,'' he said.

The report was adopted at the top security meeting of ministers in charge of defense and foreign affairs in Washington.