Report: Cheney Snubbing Japan Official
    The Associated Press

    Sunday 11 February 2007

    Tokyo - Vice President Dick Cheney will not meet with Japan's defense minister during his trip to the country next week, a decision Japanese media characterized as a snub over the official calling the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a "mistake."

    Kyodo news agency said Cheney has asked Japan not to schedule any talks with Defense Minister Jumio Kyuma, who criticized the decision to go to war last month because he said it was based on the erroneous assumption that Saddam Hussein's government had weapons of mass destruction.

    Kyuma later backtracked, saying he meant that the decision to attack Iraq should have been thought through more cautiously.

    Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.

    In Washington, Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said the vice president's schedule had been filled before he received an invitation from Kyuma to meet.

    "He is looking forward to a full day of meetings in Japan, including meetings with the emperor, the prime minister, the chief Cabinet secretary and the foreign minister," McBride said.

    "This schedule was set in advance of receiving a request from the defense minister."

    Japan sent ground troops to southern Iraq on a humanitarian mission after the March 2003 invasion, but the contingent was pulled out last year. Japan still operates airlifts in the region in support of the U.S.-led forces, a mission set to end in July.