2ND LD: Fukuda orders drastic Defense Ministry reform, task force set up

(EDS: ADDING FUKUDA COMMENTS)

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday to fundamentally reform the Defense Ministry as criticism is growing over its handling of a collision between a high-tech Aegis destroyer and a fishing boat, Ishiba said.

In connection with the order, the ministry launched an in-house task force on reforms the same day with nine Self-Defense Forces officers and six senior bureaucrats as key members, Ishiba told reporters.

''I think organizational problems were behind'' the accident and the handling of it and ''we must review the organization fundamentally,'' Fukuda was quoted as telling Cabinet members in the morning.

But the prime minister later told reporters at his office that he cannot yet make definitive remarks on whether the accident and the handling of it come from the constitution of the ministry as an investigation into the cause is ongoing.

''We must look carefully into whether they are rooted in (the makeup of the ministry),'' Fukuda said, adding that a government panel is separately considering how to reform the ministry in light of a spate of scandals and will have to think about whether to include the accident in its discussions.

In a related move, Ishiba has decided to sack Eiji Yoshikawa, chief of staff of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, mainly for his failure to immediately communicate information concerning the collision, according to ministry sources.

The ministry and the MSDF have come under fire over its handling and information disclosure of the collision between the destroyer Atago and the fishing boat Seitoku Maru in the Pacific off the Boso Peninsula, in which two fishermen went missing.

Fukuda told his Cabinet members to do their utmost to ensure a proper procedure for crisis management. ''The government and the Cabinet are always questioned whether they can manage crises properly,'' he was quoted as saying.

Ishiba set up the task force separately from the government's panel of experts to discuss Defense Ministry reforms that were established in December. Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and Ishiba represent the government on the panel.