Thursday's kidnapping of three Japanese civilians in Iraq has exposed the government's ill-preparedness for crises, especially those involving terrorists.
Though government officials stressed Friday that they had prepared a crisis-management manual in advance and acted accordingly, observers and some government insiders pointed out that the government lacks the ability to gather critical information, as well as the contacts necessary to deal with this kind of crisis.
"Measures to deal with crisis management vary from case to case. But the basics are unchanged," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said, adding that the government has acted in accordance with the manual.