Given the deteriorating security situation, Japan should consider first dispatching the air and maritime branches of the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq instead of ground troops, the policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party indicated Sunday.

"There have been changes in (the local) situation," LDP policy affairs chief Fukushiro Nukaga said during a morning debate show on NHK TV. "It's important to consider everything, including (transportation of) materials for humanitarian assistance by air and sea."

The government had been planning to send the Ground Self-Defense Force to southern Iraq, which until recently had been viewed as being relatively calm.

Under a special law allowing the SDF to be sent to Iraq for reconstruction efforts, the troops can only be deployed to "noncombat zones" as the war-renouncing Constitution prohibits Japan from exercising the use of force as a means to solve international disputes.

But intensifying guerrilla attacks in Iraq have placed the government in a difficult position regarding the SDF mission.

Opposition parties, which had opposed Japan's support for the U.S.-led war against Iraq, are expected to grill Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the SDF dispatch during a session Tuesday of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.