I appreciated the critical remarks that Japanese Cabinet ministers recently made about U.S. policy in Iraq, feeling that high-level Japanese officials had finally begun to express their honest opinions. But I was disappointed when the government scrambled to coordinate its views to eliminate any impressions of discord in the Cabinet.

At a Jan. 24 news conference in Tokyo, Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said "President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq on the assumption that nuclear weapons existed there was a mistake." In a Feb. 3 lecture in Kyoto, Foreign Minister Taro Aso characterized U.S. military operations in Iraq under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "very naive."

Criticism of the United States' Iraq policy has been growing in Europe and within the U.S., where the Republicans lost their majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2006 midterm elections. On Feb. 16, the House adopted a resolution opposing a troop buildup in Iraq, with the support of Democrats and some Republicans.