Aegis Asshore deployment suspended "Unreasonable" Defense Minister June 16 11:53
On the announcement of the suspension of the deployment plan for the new interceptor missile "Aegis Ashore", Minister of Defense Kono said in the House of Representatives Security Committee that "it decided that it would be unreasonable to incur costs and time". , I apologize for the judgment that was different from the explanation so far.
Regarding the deployment of "Aegis Ashore", Defense Minister Kono needs repair of the missile itself in order to safely drop a propulsion auxiliary device called "booster" used when launching an interceptor missile on the 15th, cost It has been announced that the plan will be suspended based on the schedule and the period.
At the Security Committee of the House of Representatives held on the 16th, the opposition said, "Is the explanation that "boosters should fall into the training field" so far false?"
In response to this, Defense Minister Kono said, "As the government has promised to surely drop the booster into the training field," we must fulfill our responsibility. We decided that it would be unreasonable to take costs and time from the viewpoint of security and the use of limited defense budget."
On that basis, Minister Kono said, "In the discussion between Japan and the United States, it was initially decided that "I could do it by repairing the software." I think that I was making efforts to repair it while explaining the deployment, but as a result, this situation occurred. As a Minister of Defense, I must apologize for that."
Minister Kono also said, "Deployment has already been decided by the Cabinet, so it will be decided again by the Cabinet if necessary." He said that he would need to make a Cabinet decision again when officially discontinuing the deployment. It was
On the other hand, after saying that the cost that has been spent so far is "I think that 12 billion yen has been paid to the US side so far", if we plan to increase the number of Aegis ships in the future, we plan to deploy it He also showed the idea to consider installing the existing system.