It is appalling that the Ground Self-Defense Force hid the existence of daily activity logs of its troops dispatched to Iraq from 2004 to 2006 for more than a year without reporting it to top Defense Ministry officials. The revelation raises not just serious questions about civilian control of the SDF, but doubts over adequate management of public documents by the government organization — a problem also highlighted by the Finance Ministry's recent admission that its bureaucrats tampered with official records over the sale of a government-owned tract of land to Osaka-based school operator Moritomo Gakuen.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has offered his "deep apology" over what he acknowledged as a "grave problem that could concern civilian control" of the SDF and damage public trust in the administration of the government. He promised to lead the effort to regain popular trust in administrative service — which should involve an overhaul of the system managing official documents and their disclosure for public review of the government's decision-making process.
The dispatch of GSDF troops to the Iraq city of Samawah, on a humanitarian aid mission following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was the first deployment of an SDF unit to a country where a conflict was taking place. The issue of SDF members's activity logs from the 2004-2006 Iraq mission was taken up in the Diet just as the Defense Ministry was grilled over reports compiled by SDF troops on a peacekeeping mission to South Sudan — which it initially said had been destroyed in response to an information disclosure request. Later it confirmed they had been kept.