A session of a special House of Representatives committee on the dispatch of ground troops to Iraq was canceled Wednesday following a slipup by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi regarding the security situation in southern Iraq.
On Tuesday, Koizumi told the Lower House Budget Committee that security in Samawah, where the main Ground Self-Defense Force contingent is expected to engage in water-purification and medical activities, is relatively stable, partly because the city has a council consisting of local representatives.
But Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi then told the committee that all of the council had resigned Saturday.