Japan may advance missile shield date

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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan may start deploying a missile shield by the end of next March, a year earlier than planned, to counter the threat of North Korean and Chinese ballistic missiles, a Japanese daily said yesterday.

The report followed a day after the Japanese parliament approved legislation that would allow a swifter response to ballistic missile attacks.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, quoting government sources, said Tokyo was considering a faster track for deployment so that some of the missile defense system will be ready when the bill takes effect at the end of the fiscal year, which ends in March 2006.

It said the plan reflects concerns about the threat of ballistic missiles held by North Korea, which declared in February that it possesses nuclear weapons.

Defense Ministry officials were not available for comment.

Alarm mounted in 1998 when North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean, prompting Tokyo's decision in December 2003 to buy a U.S.-made defense system.

Under the current plan, the Defense Ministry is to start deploying Patriot 3 (PAC-3) surface-to-air missiles in late fiscal 2006-07, which ends in March 2007, Yomiuri Shimbun said.

In addition, one of Japan's four Aegis destroyers is to be refitted with SM-3 missiles by the end of 2007.

By the end of fiscal 2010-11, the government wants to have four missile defense-equipped Aegis destroyers and three PAC-3 units deployed.

An earlier start to such plans, however, may run into some difficulties, Yomiuri Shimbun quoted a Defense Ministry source as saying.

"Due to contractual issues, there is a possibility that it could be hard to drastically bring forward PAC-3 or SM-3 that need to be bought from the United States," a ministry source was quoted as saying.

To make effective use of the shield, the government crafted a revision to defense laws that would allow the defense minister to order the interception of an incoming missile without seeking approval from the Cabinet and Security Council, as is now required.

The bill was enacted by parliament's upper house on Friday.

Military analysts have said Tokyo would be unable to respond to a ballistic missile launch by neighboring North Korea if it used the current procedure because it would take only around 10 minutes for such a missile to hit Japan.