Japan today ruled out any rapid dispatch of forces to Iraq, in another setback for US stabilisation efforts a day after a devastating suicide attack on Italian troops in the south.
"There should be a situation where our country's self-defence Forces can conduct their activities fully," chief cabinet secretary Mr Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference where he was grilled on the issue."
"But to our regret, the situation is not like that." Asked whether the dispatch could be delayed until next year, Mr Fukuda said: "That possibility has always existed."
Italy's defence minister today surveyed the destruction at the military police base in Nassiriya where at least 18 Italians and nine Iraqis died in a huge car bomb blast.
The US military said today another soldier had been killed in an attack in Baghdad, and American soldiers in the flashpoint town of Falluja came under fresh attack.
Grappling with an expanding insurgency, US forces hit back on last night, using a Hercules aircraft to destroy a Baghdad warehouse thought to be used by guerrillas. Two Iraqis were also killed in a helicopter strike against a van used to launch mortar attacks on US forces.
A military spokesman said the crackdown, named "Operation Iron Hammer", would continue.
In Washington, President George W. Bush directed Iraq's US governor, Mr Paul Bremer, to speed the transfer of postwar authority to Iraqis, drawing the administration's policy closer to that of sceptical European allies.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said his country was ready to help with the reconstruction of Iraq once sovereignty was awarded to a provisional government.
The Washington Postreported that the Bush administration plans to back the creation of a revamped Iraqi governing body that would assume a large degree of power by next summer.
Relentless attacks and suicide bombings in Iraq have dogged US efforts to rebuild the country and made allies wary of contributing troops that might become targets.
Guerrillas have killed 156 US troops since Mr Bush declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1st.
In Nassiriya, Italian Defence Minister Antonio Martino blamed the bomb attack on the "same people" who had carried out the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"It reminded me that slightly over a month ago, I was in New York City at Ground Zero and I was struck by the similarity of the impression," he said, referring to the destruction of the World Trade Center in the suicide plane attacks of 2001.
"Then I realised why - because they are the same people. They are the people that we are fighting against and we shall not allow them to terrorise us," Mr Martino said.
As Italy mourned and flags flew at half-mast, the country's cabinet confirmed that Rome would keep its 2,300 troops in Iraq, a political source said.