Japan vowed yesterday to make no hasty decisions about its troops in Iraq after a mortar attack near their camp but renewed violence in the country kept Tokyo and Washington's other allies in Asia on edge as some US senators and others raised the specter of "another Vietnam."
US and allied troops have faced a dramatic surge of violence by Sunni and Shiite militants this week and the fresh bloodshed is likely to dominate talks during a trip to Asia by US Vice President Dick Cheney beginning tomorrow.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer rejected comparisons to Vietnam, raised by US Senator Edward Kennedy among others in Washington, as well as by critics at home.
But he said Canberra, a staunch member of the US-led coalition, wanted the outbreak of violence that has claimed more than 235 lives in three days to be quelled so power could be handed over to Iraqis by a June 30 deadline.
Japan has tightened security at its military camp in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa and ordered its nearly 550 non-combat troops to suspend reconstruction activities outside their base until after a Shiite religious event tomorrow.
Several explosions, believed to be from mortars or rockets, were heard near the camp late on Wednesday and Kyodo news agency said local security authorities had blockaded nearby roads.
Nothing struck the camp and no military personnel were injured, a defense ministry spokesman in Tokyo said.
"It appears that terrorists are trying to create confusion," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said.
"They are trying to get the Japanese troops to withdraw from Iraq soon," he said.
Nudged by the US, Japan has sent troops to Samawa on a non-combat mission to help rebuild Iraq.
It is Japan's riskiest military deployment since World War II. Critics also say it violates Japan's pacifist constitution.
No Japanese soldier has fired a shot in action or been killed in combat since 1945 and casualties could undermine support for Koizumi's government ahead of Upper House elections in July.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference that the government would assess the situation calmly.
"Conditions are changing, and we will respond as needed to these," he said.
"But within this we will carry on our rebuilding and humanitarian missions to the fullest possible limit," he said.
Downer, rejecting the link to the Vietnam war, said US-led coalition forces should stay in Iraq after sovereignty is returned, a remark that drew fire from an opposition leader.
A staunch supporter of the US, Australia sent 2,000 military personnel to join the US-led coalition in Iraq and Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said the remaining 850 troops in and around that country will stay until their job is done.
"In the case of Vietnam, you had a country divided," Downer told Australian radio.
"In the case of Iraq, what you have here is a country where first of all, nobody or almost nobody wants to go back to the brutal barbaric regime of [former Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein."
Australian Labor Party Leader Mark Latham, whose center-left party leads the conservative government in opinion polls, has vowed to bring Australian troops home by Christmas if his party wins an election in the second half of the year.
Latham said he wanted Howard to define just what job Australian troops needed to finish before coming home.
"What is the job? The job is not the management of nationalistic tensions in Iraq," he said.
South Korea on Wednesday ordered its non-combat troops in Iraq to suspend activities outside military camps and step up security measures, but Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said on there was no change to South Korea's plan to deploy additional troops.
South Korea has 600 military engineers and medics in Iraq and plans to send 3,000 more soldiers for reconstruction.
Seoul's decision to deploy troops, opposed by many voters, has been seen as a pragmatic move to bolster South Korea's ties with the US so the two governments can work closely on the crisis over North Korea's nuclear arms program.
Iraq is expected to be high on Cheney's agenda at talks in Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul.
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