Bureaucrats' power over SDF draws fire

A government panel on Defense Ministry reform endorsed on Tuesday a nonbinding report that proposes keeping bureaucrats away from meddling with the Self-Defense Forces so uniformed officers can manage SDF units more efficiently.

The panel under Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura also proposed that an SDF officer be chief of a ministry division made up of bureaucrats while keeping the ministry's current structure, which includes both bureaucrats and military brass, largely intact.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. adviser Nobuya Minami, who heads the panel, presented the report to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Other panel members include academics and retired defense bureaucrats.

If the government acts on the report's proposals, it would be the defense organ's first overhaul since its predecessor, the Defense Agency, was set up in 1954. The agency was given full ministry status last year.

But such an overhaul would require the revision of the Defense Ministry Establishment Law and the SDF Law, which would have to be backed by the opposition camp due to its control of the Upper House.

The panel was set up last year after the Defense Ministry and the SDF were embroiled in scandals involving business collusion with former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya and the alleged mishandling of classified data by the Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Another key item in the panel's report is a proposal to do away with the ministry's Operational Policy Bureau, a section composed of bureaucrats, and let its Joint Staff Office, a unit consisting of mostly uniformed officers, manage SDF units under the defense minister.

The bureau and the Joint Staff Office currently work together to manage the SDF.

The panel also proposed setting up a defense council that would consist of political appointees and civilian and uniformed ministry staff.