Incident may harm Okinawa presence

Greeneville officers to face highest-level court inquiry
Civilians' names break the surface
Admiral tells court to scrutinize collision
Accidents devastate military families
Couple extends sympathy to those involved in accident
Chronology of tragedy at sea
Video of the sunken Ehime Maru
A Tribute to the Missing
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WASHINGTON — A thorough investigation of the USS Greeneville accident and swift action would prevent long-term damage to the Navy’s credibility and U.S.-Japan relations, military experts say.

But much will depend on how well the government handles the probe of what happened Feb. 9, when the Greeneville slammed into a Japanese fishing vessel, the Ehime Maru, experts say. The fishing school’s training boat carried 35 people and sank almost immediately. Nine people, including four teenage students, are missing and presumed dead.

Analysts said the accident may mean continuing problems for the U.S. military on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Resentment there of the U.S. military presence — nearly 30,000 troops — lingers from the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three U.S. servicemen.

Just two days before the submarine accident nine miles off Diamond Head, the top U.S. Marine in Japan apologized for insulting Okinawa authorities in an e-mail message. And memories of the rape were stirred Thursday when the Japanese learned that it was Retired Navy Adm. Richard Macke who arranged for most of the 16 civilians — most contributors to the USS Missouri Battleship Memorial Association — to ride aboard the Greeneville.

Macke, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific at the time of the rape, commented afterward that the crime could have been avoided if the servicemen had paid for a prostitute. He was immediately replaced, but that he was also a key figure in this new incident increases Japanese anger, said Washington correspondents for Japanese media.

"The Japanese people are very sensitive to this," said Yusuke Takahashi, correspondent for Nippon Hoso Kyokai, the Japan Broadcasting Corp. "There are no long-term effects of this accident yet, but the inquiry, how information is released, and the facts will be the crucial point."

Ex-admiral defended

Japanese people are also growing angrier and more frustrated about civilians being at the submarine’s controls, the way information about the collision was withheld and then slowly dribbled out, and the submarine crew’s failure to help victims on the Ehime Maru, Takahashi said.

Rear Adm. Stephen Pietropaoli, a Navy spokesman, defended Macke’s role at a news conference Thursday. Macke is just one of many military, political and business leaders who "bring to the attention of the Navy groups of individuals who are interested in getting out to sea," Pietropaoli said. "We are very proud of our efforts to bring Americans out to see their Navy."

Experts said they doubt the policy of bringing civilians on board submarines will change, though President Bush has requested a review.

The policy is part of the Navy’s campaign to bolster public support and financing, said John Isaacs, president of the Washington-based Council for a Livable World, an arms control lobbying group. "It keeps the dollars flowing and the public adoring them," Isaacs said.

"They’ve had this program for a long time," said retired Navy Rear Adm. Eugene J. Carroll, vice president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "I had civilians on my ships, and I see no reason to stop it. I don’t think the civilian presence had anything to do with it."

Navy ‘violated’ rule

As for lasting damage to the Navy’s reputation, "so much depends on what the investigation shows," Carroll said. "If they did everything right, if they used all the systems correctly, there would be no long-term damage. If they find dereliction of duty it would be much worse."

In terms of public relations, Carroll said, "It seems to me they violated the first rule, which is tell everyone what you know as soon as you know it. Making these disclosures on the civilians inch by painful inch is not very helpful.

"In any event, it will be a difficult political issue with Japan for a while, because no matter what the cause or outcome, they’ll find it a reason for complaint and criticism," he said. But Carroll said he did not believe there would be long-term damage to the close diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Isaacs said the incident mostly hurts relations between the U.S. military and the Japanese.

"Any accident where a lot of civilians are killed is a black eye for the military," Isaacs said. "Long term, I hope that we can recognize it as a tragic mistake and move on. More damaging to our prospects are the U.S. troops in Okinawa. It may be a small difference, but at least this happened in Hawai‘i and not Okinawa. This is just one more incident, and I don’t think it’s the most serious incident."

Restitution called for

Restitution or other steps toward healing the wounds after the investigation would help, Isaacs said. "If people are found guilty of bad judgment perhaps they should be court-martialed. But if no one is punished, that’ll exacerbate the situation."

Michael Vickers, director of strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan Washington think tank specializing in defense issues, said the incident does not look as bad as the one in Italy in which a Marine Corps plane sliced through wires supporting a ski gondola, killing civilians.

"It certainly looks like the commander of the submarine made a big mistake," Vickers said. "But as bad as this is, it’s not that bad. It seems to be the product of operational negligence rather than doing something stupid."

Vickers agreed that any long-lasting effects would depend on whether someone is punished, and how quickly the investigation can be completed.

"We need to put this in the context of the Okinawa problem, which just doesn’t seem to go away," he said. But he added that the Bush administration’s pledge to emphasize U.S.-Japan relations, which were neglected in the 1990s, could help counterbalance any setback.

Sheila Smith, an East-West Center specialist in Japanese security, pointed out that the collision comes at a time when the two governments are trying to expand the number of civilian ports where U.S. Navy ships can visit.

Since the collision, a mayor of Okinawa has requested that submarines not enter the port of Urasoe, where the U.S. and Japanese governments had agreed to put a military port. The U.S. Navy in Yokosuka, Japan, also announced that it had called off a ship visit to a civilian port in Hokkaido.

The Japanese public is highly critical of its own military forces as well as foreign ones, said Smith, who was a civilian guest aboard a Japanese destroyer during an exercise in 1988 near Tokyo when a Japanese submarine ran into a fishing boat, causing 30 deaths.

In 1981, an U.S. submarine collided with a Japanese freighter, killing two seamen. Both accidents raised protests in Japan and led to perceptions of "irresponsibility and inconsideration," Smith said.

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