The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 10 | Number 2 | Article ID 3316 | Mar 08, 2010

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Mission Impossible? Misawa as the Forward Staging Area forthe Secret US-Japan Nuclear Deal and the Bombing of Iraq　米軍基地ミサワーー核密約の最前線　斉藤光政

Mitsumasa Saito

Mission Impossible? Misawa as theForward Staging Area for the Secret US-Japan Nuclear Deal and the Bombing ofIraq

Saito Mitsumasa

Translation by Kyoko Selden

A Misawa Base pilot is met by his family onhis safe return. Capt. Tyler Young, 13thFighter Squadron pilot, shares a laugh

with his wife, Anna, and daughter, Clara,after returning from a deployment Aug. 20,

2009.

Global Strike

With a proud high-heel clatter not becoming amilitary runway, she rushes forward, followedby her children with slightly shy looks on theirfaces. A pilot in flight suit awaits them, armsspread. Embraces, kisses, tears. . . .

“So good you’re home.” “I missed you.” Many

such warm words are exchanged makingonlookers smile.

This was Misawa, the US Base in Aomori innorthern Japan (home of the US Air Force’s35th Fighter Wing) in October 2007, when thewind blowing ashore from the Pacific wasturning cold.

The Misawa Base, the only Suppression ofEnemy Air Defense (SEAD) unit of the USPacific forces headquartered in Hawaii, is, so tospeak, in the position of the first attacker of theentire force. It continually sends F-16CJFighting Falcons off to the Middle East. Theabove, then, should have been anothercommonplace scene. But something wasdifferent on that particular day. The welcome

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was more emphatic than usual, and theatmosphere on base appeared elated. This wasthe victorious return from the highest of AirForce missions. In August, two months beforetheir return, the unit had successfullynavigated the large-scale secret operationstyled “global strike,” a “long-distancepreemptive attack.”

F16-CJ

“4200 miles,” says a US military source I havebefore my eyes. Four F-16 combat planes thathad been dispatched from the Misawa Basecovered this tremendous distance flying non-stop to Iraq before flying from Baghdad toeastern Afghanistan, where they performednighttime precision bombing raids.

Their target was the Taliban, the anti-government armed force in Afghanistan. Due tothe nature of the secret mission, details remainunclear. But judging from available US militarydocuments, the four planes had beendispatched as an American ExpeditionaryForces (AEF) unit to the Balad Base in thesuburbs of Baghdad, and, taking off from there,performed dispatched over twelve precision-guided bomb units called GBU-38s, eachweighing 500 pounds.

The American Expeditionary Forces refers todeployment units, each with about 30 airplanesflexibly organized and including fighters andbombers, that the US Air Force deploys areas

throughout the world. Since the Gulf War, theyhave been repeatedly dispatched to the MiddleEast, which is the world’s greatest powdermagazine. In Iraq, they continue to operatelong after the downfall of the Husseinadministration.

SEAD has the role of leading the way indestroying antiaircraft missiles and importantfacilities like command headquarters. Misawa’s35th Fighter Wing can be seen as the core ofthe Expeditionary Forces. Of the 40 airplanesbased there, they continually dispatchapproximately 10. Their F-16s were the first toattack Baghdad in the Iraq War (2003). At thetime of the US-North Korea crisis (1994), onthe brink of a second Korean War, F-16s werealso dispatched to South Korea. These twoexamples help us clearly see the 35th FighterWing’s position.

The round trip between the Balad Base, SEAD’sIraqi foothold, and the Taliban target amountedto 4,200 miles. The distance, exceeding thatacross North America, is impressive. But whatis more remarkable about this bombing missionis that it was performed secretly and swiftly. Itwas only 18 hours from the drafting of the planto the sortie.

What is more important is that those F-16sbelonged to an American base in Japan, farfrom the Middle East, and the Japanese peoplehad no idea that the attack was indirectlylaunched from their soil until I exposed thisfact in Shūkan Kinyōbi, (Sept 5, 2008, pp.16-19). They were intentionally kept in the darkabout the fact that Japan was indirectlyinvolved in the strategic cleanup operation ofthe guerillas in Afghanistan.

“The 500-pound precision munitions scoreddirect hits. The pilots became fond of the skyabove eastern Afghanistan.”

This is how a US military source records theachievement of the bombings. Perhaps becausethe operation was successful, this even conveys

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uniquely American humor.

The four airplanes spent 11 hours for theroundtrip flight. Receiving air-to-air refuelingas many as thirteen times, they flew over sixcountries en route. Their flight path is amystery, but surely this was a missionchallenging the endurance of the aircraft andpilots. In a sense it can be said to have been acalculated “adventure.”

The global strike concept apparently enjoyedthe powerful support of Bush’s Secretary of theState Rice. The strategic concept is to “beprepared to attack any place in the worldwithin 24 hours.” One application of globalstrike was this secret operation. The US is,moreover, constructing a system by which itcan instantly attack any place in Middle Eastfrom Iraq.

Why, then, was it necessary to go to that extentto bomb Afghanistan? Why didn’t they uselarge-model bombers? Is the Taliban that muchof a threat?

Numerous questions arise about this operation.To these, Japanese and US military specialistsrespond alike. “It is highly probable” they say,“that this was a rehearsal for an assumedattack on Iran’s nuclear complex, which ismoving ahead in defiance of the US.”

The specialists take note of the situation inwhich Iran is central to the US gaze as theirgreatest assumed enemy along with NorthKorea.

The reason that Misawa’s F-16s were chosen toperform the operation is simple. To borrow thewords of Niihara Akiharu, an internationalrelations researcher conversant with US-Japanmilitary relations, “It’s simply that even the USAir Force, which is at the highest level in theworld, has a limited number of units that canperform the extremely specialized mission ofnighttime, super long-distance, precisionbombing, and one of them is at Misawa.”

The true picture of Misawa revealed

The Misawa Base is hard at work fulfilling itsspecial duties. But this singularity of Misawa isnothing new. It goes back to the mid 1950s atthe peak of the east-west cold war.

At the time, anticipating that “the next warwould be a nuclear war,” the US and the SovietUnion f ierce ly competed in nuc leardevelopment. In that framework, the missionassigned to Misawa, the northernmost andlargest US a ir base on the Japanesearchipelago, was precisely to carry out nuclearattacks using airplanes to target the SovietUnion, China, and North Korea. Misawa waspositioned as a base for nuclear sorties inWorld War III to come.

In order to penetrate this nuclear mystery,starting in 1998 I began examining, US AirForce secret documents. I took aim at the“command history” of generations of unitsstationed at Misawa.

Negotiating with The Air Force HistoricalResearch Agency in Alabama, after lengthynegotiations I obtained a 4,000 page document.As expected, every cover was stamped“SECRET,” and the portions that I reallywanted to see were blacked out. Still, I had nochoice but to go forward. I struggled with thedocument for two years, collected evidencefrom testimonies by former pilots, and gained aclear picture of cold war era Misawa. That truepicture was namely the role of US air bases inJapan in the swift execution of nuclear war.

The document states directly: The duty of the39th Air Division (the unit then stationed inMisawa) is to execute Emergency War Plans(EWP) in the event of a hostile action againstthe United States and its allies (1961).

EWP is a US Air Force manual drafted on theassumption of entering a total nuclear war. Thedocument uses a roundabout expression, “is inexecution of EWP,” but, simply put, it asserts

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that Misawa’s main duty is to conduct nuclearoperations. The document lists the specialpowers of the Misawa commander to carry outEWP:

1. Start alerts for nuclear-loadableunits.

2. Load nuclear-loadable aircraftwith nuclear weapons.

3. Start pre-planned nuclearattacks in the event that a worldwar erupts.

I cannot forget the shock I experienced when Isaw the expressions “nuclear-loadable” and“nuclear attack,” standing side by side as amatter of fact. They plainly indicated thatMisawa during the cold war era was a basewith a nuclear attack mission.

What then was the nuclear bomb to be usedaccording to the plan? It was a small strategicnuclear weapon that could be loaded on a oneperson jet fighter. The US military had in mindthe MK7 (70 kiloton), whose explosive powerwas five times greater than the atomic bomb ofthe Hiroshima type. This was the world’s firstpractical nuclear bomb that began to bedeployed in 1952.

MK7

Later, it escalated to a hydrogen bomb calledMK28 (deployed in 1958), then MK43(deployed in 1961) with an explosive power of 1megaton or 70 times greater than theHiroshima-type bomb, and finally B61(deployed in 1968) and still in service.

In case of emergency, all combat bombers ofthe two flying corps (40 planes) positioned inMisawa were to set off, each with such a bomb.

The targets were the Maritime Province ofSiberia around Vladivostok, Northeast Chinasuch as Dalian and Lüshun, and North Koreawhere the fires of war still burned.

Nuclear attack missions and US militarybases in Japan

What is startling is the discovery that manysuch nuclear attacks presupposed kamikaze-like “one-way attacks.”

Aircraft deployed in Misawa in the 1950s werethe F-84 G Thunderjet and F-100 D SuperSabre, three and two generations previous tothe F-16 respectively. Both had a combat radiusof approximately 625 miles, but the targetassigned to pilots exceeded that distance inmany cases. They would be unable to return toMisawa, where their wives and children waited.Former Major Francis Loftus (Texas), a pilotwho worked at Misawa then, told me about thistragic situation with a grave expression on hisface.

“It was very stern duty. Thesmallest error would blow it. If Iactually made a sortie, I thought, Iwould probably fall into the sea,because, depending on the target,it was impossible to return to thebase.

Both the Soviet Union and China

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must have known that Misawa wasa nuclear attack base. So, I didn’tworry too much about the potentialone-way trip. If a nuclear warstarted, Misawa would receivenuclear attacks, and there wouldbe no place for me to return to.Should I survive my attack mission,I thought I might have to make anemergency landing somewhere andperhaps commit suicide. I wasequipped with potassium cyanidefor that purpose. . . .”

Concerning specific targets assigned to pilots,former Col. George Barnart (Texas), whoworked at Misawa’s command unit in thosedays, testifies that “in order to completelyblock enemy counterattack, we would have hadto destroy the airport, the missile site, thecommand unit, and communication facilities,which naturally included the storehouse fornuclear weapons.”

In order to attack their nuclear targets withprecision, young pilots in their twentiesrepeated strenuous drills at Amagamorishooting range to the north of the MisawaBase, that consisted of flying low at a fiercespeed of 500 knots (approximately 560 milesper hour) 50 feet above the ground—lowenough to almost touch electric lines—anddeliver a nuclear bomb.

Over-the-shoulder, laydown, retarded. . . .De l i very methods changed rap id l yaccompanying the progress of nucleartechnology, but one thing did not change: thelow-altitude, high-speed, life-risking acrobaticflights.

Over-the-Shoulder Method

Laydown Method

Copyright Brian Burnell © 2007

Former Major Loftus explains the over-the-shoulder method, which was the earliestdelivery method used:

“The cockpit was equipped with aspecial G meter, and, whenreleasing a nuclear bomb to thetarget, the pilot had to loop theloop exactly at the gravity of 4Gand at an angle of 104.5 degrees.

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And within 45 to 60 secondsfollowing the release you wereexpected to accelerate with theafterburner to get away at thespeed of sound.”

As he said, the majority of the drills at Misawainvolved practicing nuclear bomb delivery.Repeated training was indispensable forattaining the advanced, complicated skills thatwere required. The secret document shows thatone flight corps dropped as many as 540 mocknuclear bombs within half a year. Thistranslates to over 1,000 per year. Because 2flying corps were stationed at Misawa in thosedays, it follows that over 2,000 mock nuclearbombs were being consumed per year at thisbase alone. The document eloquently narrateshow “nuclear-steeped” we were then.

The severe drills naturally produced manyvictims. My survey reveals that 6 F-100s fell injust two years starting in September 1961,when the training was most intense. “Therewere almost more deaths than in the Vietnamwar” (former Major Raymond Tiffault, SouthCarolina). In that sense, the Amagamori firingrange can be called the grave marker for theyoung pilots who sacrificed themselves to thecold war.

The secret document made clear that nuclearattack missions were also assigned to basesother than Misawa. They were Iruma inSaitama prefecture (the 3rd Bomber Wing),Itazuke in Fukuoka prefecture (the 8th TacticalFighter Wing), Komaki in Aichi prefecture (the9th Fighter-Bomber Group), and Kadena inOkinawa prefecture (the 18th Tactical FighterWing), the last of which was under the USmilitary rule until its repatriation to Japaneserule in 1972.

B-57 Canberra light bombers were deployed atIruma, and, as at Misawa, F-84 and F-100fighter-bombers at Itazuke, Komaki, andKadena. Nuclear delivery drills for Iruma Base

pilots were mostly conducted at the Mito firingrange in Ibaraki prefecture, but at times thelocale changed to Amagamori range.

These four were the nuclear sortie bases that Iwas able to confirm in the secret document.But I know from circumstantial evidence andtestimonies that the probability is quite highthat Yokota, Tokyo, was another such base. Atpresent, Fifth Air Force headquarters, whichalso serves as the headquarters of US militaryforces in Japan, is located at Yokota. In otherwords, nearly al l US air bases on thearchipelago were turned into nuclear bases.

Loopholes for bringing in nuclear weapons

Here’s the greatest riddle regarding nuclearweapons in US military bases in Japan: whendid the nuclear missions begin and when didthey end?

It is known that at least Misawa and Komakiwere already so assigned in 1957. This wouldmean that the entire archipelago was capableof nuclear departures for fifteen years until1972, when Okinawa was returned to Japan“nuclear-free.”

Another question surfaces here. It’s simple:didn’t Japan have the three non-nuclearprinciples, which means that we do not letothers bring in nuclear weapons? In fact,therein lay the clever trick fabricated by the USmilitary and the Japanese government.

What Misawa and other departure bases werealways equipped with were “components”without nuclear fuel. “Cores” were to becarried in at the last minute from Kadena thatwas under US military rule on Okinawa. “Aslong as components were not loaded withnuclear fuel, nuclear bombs were notpresent”—this was the US logic. In otherwords, the three non-nuclear principles hadbeen reduced to mere form.

There was one other loophole. It relates to US-

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Japan interpretation of the term “introduction,”which corresponds to the Japanesemochikomasezu (let no one bring in). GabeMasaaki of Ryūkyū University (internationalrelations) clarified this “secret agreement”between the two countries. He explains thedexterity of this loophole as follows:

The US used the term “introduction” in thesense of “storing” or “deployment” on land.From this interpretation, temporary passing ofan aircraft or temporary stopping at a port by aship was no more than “transit.” This is notincluded in “introduction.” In other words, evenif aircraft or ships loaded with nuclear weaponsenter Japan’s territorial airspace or waters, itdoes not mean “bringing in.” This was an itemof agreement confirmed at a 1963 closedmeeting of Ambassador Reischauer andForeign Minister Ōhira.1

There is a military term DEFCON, short fordefense condition. It defines five levels ofmilitary readiness from standard peacefulcondition, which is 5, to expectation ofimminent attack, which is 1. According to thesecret document, as soon as DEFCON 2 wasdeclared, meaning heightened force readinessjust below maximum readiness, C-130Hercules, a transport aircraft code-named“High Gear,” was to set out with nuclear“cores” hoarded in Kadena’s nuclear storage.

C-130 Hercules

The cores, the size of a tennis ball and each

nestled in a container called a “bird cage,”were to be transported along with militarytechnicians who are nuclear weaponsspecialists to nuclear sortie bases includingMisawa, Komaki, Itazuke, and Iruma, to fit the“components” loaded under the body of fighter-bombers preparing to take off.

All standby fighter bombers and light bomberswere required to be ready to take off within 30minutes following DEFCON 1 regulations. Thebodies of nuclear weapons without cores werekept at special facilities called TOF (theatreoperation facility) near runways.

The US classified this nuclear transport tomainland Japan, intended for total war, as“transits” for “temporarily carrying, fitting, andsending out again,” not “bringing in” nuclearweapons.

In other words, such US military bases asMisawa, Komaki, I tazuke, and Irumaconfronted the Soviet Union, China, and Korea,nearly freely without the restriction of thethree non-nuclear principles. Japanese citizensremained ignorant of this imminent nuclearcrisis while providing bases for the Americanforces. As with the secret Afghanistanoperations mentioned above, mercilessAmerican military strategies are glimpsed here.

An empty nuclear agreement

The secret nuclear agreement, by whichgenerations of administrations tacitly permittedships loaded with nuclear weapons to passthrough Japan’s territorial waters and stop atports, has become a large political issue. Itsfocus is “bringing in nuclear weapons” byaircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers,submarines, and so forth. But the Air Force’snuclear weapons similarly travel freely, and itis an established fact that they would be put topractical use in time of emergency—in “secretagreement” form.

Prime Minister Hatoyama states of the secret

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agreement that he will “conduct a thoroughinvestigation and publicize the results.” Whether the public investigation will cover notjust “nuclear weapons at sea” but the “nuclearweapons in air space” that I have researched,and whether the “secret agreement” policy tokeep the people ignorant will in fact be exposedin broad daylight—how the new administrationwill handle this remains to be seen.

There was a blank spot impossible to grasp inthe process of clarifying nuclear-loaded sortiesby the US military in Japan. That was thelocation of Kadena’s “nuclear storage space”that was the source of “core” supply for airbases in mainland Japan. It was in 2005 that Iwas able to locate the place, seven years after Iobtained the secret document. I was finally ableto collect evidence from a 1973 aerialphotograph, right after reversion, together withtestimonies of Japanese civilian employees fromthose days. It was in a corner in the hilly areasadjacent to the eastern tip of Kadena’s runway.

The “nuclear storage space” concealed indarkness for half a century existed at theentrance of the powder magazine just one road(the present-day prefectural highway 74) awayfrom the airport. So close to the runway—thiswas unexpected.

Tomoyose Chōei (deceased; Ginowan city,Okinawa prefecture), who had access to the“nuclear storage space” in those days as acivilian employee of the company of engineersattests to the veracity of that space being a“special place”: “In the spacious Kadenapowder magazine, military men in nuclearprotective clothing were around in that corneralone. The complex proper was deep down,sixth stories underground. When entering therewe were required to wear a film badge thatwould confirm exposure to radiation.” Hecontinued:

“It was a special area underunusually heavy guard, where even

military police could not enter. Sothere was a tacit understandingamong us that it was a nuclearstorage space. Those concerned allknew about it.”

According to the secret document, thecomplete nuclear war plan anticipated that thePacific forces would use a total of 421 cores. Itis natural to consider that at least more than200 of them were kept in this “nuclear storagespace.” Of these, 50 were assigned toMisawa—this is my conclusion.

US strategies that transcend the US-JapanSecurity Treaty

The strategy replacing this nuclear sortie planis precisely the “global strike” approach. Itstrump card is the fully high-tech precisionguided missile called GBU-38.

GBU-38 is a new-generation bomb called JDAM(Joint Direct Attack Munitions). It combinesGPS (Global Positioning System) and InertialMeasurement Unit, thereby enabling pin-pointattacks. It also has the characteristic of aMassive Ordnance Penetrator. In other words,it is a special weapon intended for destructionof military facilities like the headquarters andballistic missile bases protected by solid rockas hard as tor to ise she l l s or h iddenunderground.

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GBU-38s

This weapon was first made public in Japan inSeptember 2005 at the Misawa AB Air Festival.The moment I saw the dark green specialbomb, matter-of-factly displayed in a corner ofthe hangar, I had a presentiment that Misawa,now having obtained new power, would greatlyenhance the ability for air attacks to becomeone of the world’s most powerful attackingdivisions.

That presentiment came to fruition in the formof the secret Afghanistan operations.

Misawa’s F-16 does not formally appear in the2 0 0 6 r o a d m a p f o r t h e U S m i l i t a r ytransformation, but there is no doubt that it is aspecial trump card.

Misawa emerges afresh, as do the roles ofother US military bases, through the new USmilitary strategy called “global strike.” Niiharaplainly and sharply analyzes this:

“What became clear from thesecret Afghanistan operations isthe surpassing role of Misawa, orby extension the US military basesin Japan. To position precious unitscapable of handling such difficultmissions in the safe, rear area ofJapan, and repeat drills thatapproximate actual combat, thensend them unhesitatingly to thefront when necessary—thisAmerican way of thinking abouttheir bases in Japan can be said tohave been made clear throughthese secret operations. That putsinto relief the new positioning andspecial character of the US basesin Japan within the framework ofthe transformation. It clearlyindicates that the radius ofMisawa’s operations covers allAsia.”

This means that the Japanese archipelago,while it is a rear support foothold for the USmilitary, continues to be a powerful departurepoint even after the conclusion of the cold war.

James Przystup of National Defense University,a specialist on US-Japan security relations Imet during data collecting in the US, told meabout the projected transformation of the USmilitary in Japan: “Japan will, as it did in thepast, continue to play a central role inAmerican strategies. Its weight will increasefurther. Starting with the US militarytransformation, the US-Japan alliance is aboutto become something that covers not just Asiabut the entire world.”

“Japan” in this statement can be replaced by“US bases in Japan,” and further by “Misawa.”Namely, by obtaining the new strategic powerof destruction called “global strike,” Misawa isextending its range of activity beyond northeastAsia to all Asia. Needless to say, it not onlyincludes Afghanistan, where chaos isdeepening, but North Korea and Iran. Thelatter two being areas where Chinese andRussian interests clash with those of the UnitedStates.

What further requires attention is the wishfulcatch phrase, “Japan as Asia’s England,”repeated unanimously by top-level members ofthe Department of Defense I interviewed. Whatthey envision is a “Japan-US-England triplealliance” with the US at the center.

This vision of the Pentagon is easy to grasp ifwe look at the map of the world from the USperspective. The idea is two-sided operations,in which forces will move from American basesin England to conflicts in Europe and Africa,and from American bases in Japan toemergencies in Asian areas including theMiddle East.

In other words, it is a grand conception ofworld management: splitting the globe intohalves with the US as the axis, it will manage

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the right half using England as a foothold andthe left half using Japan as a foothold. This isthe ambition of the US that is trying to betoday’s Roman Empire, that is, Pax Americana,a world order dominated by the US.

Unaware of this, Japan is becoming one of thetwo strategic footholds the US regards as mostimportant in global perspective.

Japan as a strategic foothold in this Americanscheme, however, poses a great potentialproblem: a possible conflict with the Far Eastprovision of the US-Japan security relationship.The fundamental question is whether strategicoperations like “global strike” that span theworld may contravene the US-Japan SecurityTreaty’s provision that limits the use ofAmerican bases in Japan to “contributing to thesecurity of Japan and the maintenance ofinternational peace and security in the FarEast.”

The Far East provision is like a fetter, so tospeak, limiting the use of American bases inJapan. Generally, the scope is understood to be“Northeast Asia north of the Philippines.”Misawa’s F-16s, in going into action in theMiddle East, stray far beyond this scope. TheJapanese government’s view is that, becausethey use Iraq as the foothold for their actions,they don’t count as direct sorties from Japan,and thus don’t contravene the Fast Eastprovision.

The government’s forced interpretationnaturally produces many frictions. LecturerIijima Shigeaki of Nagoya Gakuin University(Constitution and peace studies) posesquestions from the viewpoint of the JapaneseConstitution:

“The American military in Japanex i s t s on ly for the sake o fprotecting security of the Far East.Therefore, the fact itself thatMisawa’s F-16s are flying over Iraq

and Afghanistan faraway fromJapan is a problem, to say nothingof global strike that has the entireworld in its field of vision. It goesagainst the idea of the currentPeace Constitution, and it is alsocounter to the Far East provision.”

Hirata Hisanori, an energetic journalistspecializing in US-Japan security policies, takesseriously the fact that Misawa is positioned asthe vanguard of global strike and that F-16sstart out from Japan. His logic is extremelyclear as he relates it to refueling activities uponthe Indian Ocean, which the new Democraticadministration considered “an urgent issue tobe solved.”2

“Looked at from present warfare inwhich no dist inct ion existsbetween the front and rear and,moreover, supply holds the key tovictory or defeat, refueling that theMarine Self-Defense Forces areconducting now is nothing lessthan ‘participation in a war.’ Muchmore so with F-16s stationed inMisawa, which repeat fierce attackdrills and make indirect sorties toareas involved in disputes. In thesense that Japan directly assiststhe American forces’ ‘attacks,’ thisbears a heavier meaning thanrefueling activities.”

Hirata also raises another issue: “Despite thefact that Japan strongly supports the Americanwars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the majority ofJapanese citizens are unaware of this. I thinkthat may be because they don’t ful lyunderstand the meaning of having US basesand supporting the US military.”

The high-tech bomb, GBU-38

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The New Yorker shockingly reported in 2007that war with Iran was imminent, saying thatthe American military had installed a specialteam within the Joint Chiefs of Staff fordeciding on a plan to attack Iran, and that,pending the President’s approval, the plancould be enacted within 24 hours.

Plans to attack Iran reported by the Americanmedia share one common theme. They listnuclear facilities as in Natanz and Isfahan incentral Iran as major targets. Natanz is auranium enrichment complex indispensable toproduction of nuclear weapons and Isfahan is auranium converter complex and a tunnel forunderground experiments. All these facilitiesare constructed over 25 meters below ground.

On the other hand, since the 1950s, training forattack has assumed North Korea to be the solehypothetical enemy. Following North Korea’swithdrawal in 1993 from the NuclearNonproliferation Treaty, the targets are said tohave fixed on the Yongbyon Nuclear ScientificResearch Center and such intermediate andlong-range nuclear ballistic missiles as theNodong and Taepodong. These facilities arelocated in rocky mountains like “ThunderbirdSecret Base.” I would like the reader to recallthe secret Afghanistan operations once again.The target was a large underground complex ofthe antigovernment power, and the weaponthat targeted it was the bunker buster GBU-38.

In fact there was an incident related to theGBU-38 in late July 2009. The Stars andStripes, a quasi-official newspaper of the USDepartment of Defense, reported on asuccessful F-16 test using mock bombs atMisawa.

Once when I published a photo of the GBU-38in a newspaper, I was sharply questioned byt h e U S m i l i t a r y a b o u t w h e r e I h a dphotographed it and whether I had obtainedpermission to do so. Aside from this, I was inconstant trouble with the US military aboutmaterial gathering, and I even had the “honor,”

first of its kind in this country, of beingforbidden to enter bases. This is a digression,but the report finally highlighted this well-protected high-tech weapon.

The article reports that training in the testdelivery of a mock missile, accompanied by theintroduction of a computer program thatanalyzes the planned delivery area, had untilthen been possible only in the States with itsspacious land areas, but that it had nowbecome possible in Japan, limited to Misawa’sAmagamori firing range. The range is the“nuclear grave marker,” where deliverytraining of mock nuclear bombs was conducteduntil the early 1970s. At the identical site, thistime today’s strategic weapon, the GBU-38,was deployed in mock missile delivery training.

Interestingly, a top-level Misawa base leader,responding to a Tōō Nippō interview, statedthat the Marine Corps and Navy aircraft atIwakuni (Yamaguchi prefecture) and Atsugi(Kanagawa prefecture) may, in the future, beable to deliver mock missiles at Misawa.

Accompanying the transformation project ofthe US military in Japan and starting in 2007,Misawa has been hosting aerial training for USbases throughout the country. This means thatit is highly likely that, in the future, deliverytraining for GBU-38s will center on Misawa.The one-time “nuclear grave marker” maybecome the “sanctuary” of high-tech weapons.Misawa is beginning to flaunt the possession ofGBU-31s, four times larger than GBU-38s andhighly destructive (2,000 pounds). This isominous.

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GBU-31

Iran in a touch-and-go situation and NorthKorea

In early September of 2009, North Koreaclaimed that plutonium extracted during theresumed operation of its nuclear facilities hadbeen weaponized. On October 12, theylaunched five short-range ballistic missiles insuccession. As if in concert, Iran announcedthat its uranium enrichment activities weregoing well at the Natanz nuclear complex, andplunged into a demonstrative act of testlaunching the newest model middle-rangeballistic missiles Shahab-3 and Sajil.

This was a hard-line stance that could beinterpreted as a challenge to the US, whichdominates the world as the single super power.President Obama responded to this with athreat that the US will not preclude any options(including military actions). MohamedElBaradei, the then Director General of theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)who stood between them, commented that thesituation around Iran’s and North Korea’snuclear development had reached an impasse.

Iran in a crisis, and the North Koreansituation—will an Iran War or a Second KoreanWar occur? The only thing we can say is that,one day, Misawa’s F-16s, with a star on eachwing and carrying a precision guided bomb,may be flying over the nuclear complexes and

ballistic missile bases of Iran and North Korea.

This is part one of a serialized reportage titled“Shimokita Nuclear Peninsula” (Shimokitakaku-hantō 下北核半島) by Kamata Satoshi andSaitō Mitsumasa, published in the Januaryissue of Sekai.

Saitō Mitsumasa is an editorial committeemember of the Tōō Daily (Tōō Nippō 東奥日報)of Aomori City. He special izes in themovements of the US military. Saitō is theauthor of Misawa, the “Secret”American Base(Beigun “himitsu” kichi Misawa 米軍「秘密」基地ミサワ) and The Frontlines of AmericanForces in Japan (Zainichi Beigun saizensen 在日米軍最前線). He is a recipient of the IshibashiTanzan Prize.

Kyoko Selden, the translator of The AtomicBomb: Voices From Hiroshima and Nagasaki(http://www.amazon.com/dp/087332773X/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) and other works, is an Asia-Pacific Journal associate. She translated thisarticle for The Asia-Pacific Journal.

Recommended citation: Saitō Mitsumasa,"Mission Impossible? Misawa as the ForwardStaging Area for the Secret US-Japan NuclearDeal and the Bombing of Iraq," The Asia-PacificJournal, 10-2-10, March 8, 2010.

Translator’s Notes

1 S e e S t e v e R a b s o n(http://japanfocus.org/-Steve-Rabson/3294),“Secret” 1965 Memo Reveals Plans to KeepNuclear Weapons Options in Okinawa AfterReversion.

2 The activities were terminated on January 16,2010, when the special measures law lost effectand was not renewed.

APJ | JF 8 | 10 | 2

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