Defense Agency Director General Fukushiro Nukaga was grim-faced Feb. 24 as he told an audience of some 600 senior Self-Defense Forces officers and Defense Agency officials to clean up their organizations.

Nukaga called the sudden assembly after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reprimanded him earlier in the day for the string of scandals involving SDF and Defense Agency personnel.

Nukaga is backed against the wall -- again.