A senior U.S. Defense Department official said Tuesday that if the Japanese government presents by the end of this year a key report to Okinawa on relocating a U.S. base within the prefecture, it could lead to a flexible response by Congress, which on Monday cut all fiscal 2012 funding for transferring Okinawa-based U.S. Marines to Guam.
Michael Schiffer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, also said in a meeting in Washington with Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Nobuteru Ishihara that the United States can deliver F-35 stealth fighters to Japan based on the planned schedule, allaying concerns of possible delays in the development of the aircraft, LDP members said.
The latest accord reached by the U.S. Congress to cut from an annual spending bill the entire $150 million funding for the planned transfer of some 8,000 U.S. Marines and their dependents, who numbered around 9,000 based on an earlier agreement, to Guam casts a shadow over the outlook for Tokyo's plan, in line with its pact with Washington, to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the Henoko district in Nago from a densely populated area of Ginowan, both in Okinawa Prefecture.