According to Defense Minister, F-35 selection was talked about within MoD before DJP came to power and was never reported to the cabinet.

 

Now that America-hating DJP is in power, things are different, Defense Minister insists in the press conference.

Maybe you could just lay off posting every internet "news" item the second someone puts it on the wire, stop with the "breaking news headline" rumor-mill feed, and only post items on a 24-hour delay, so the responsible officials have time enough to debunk all the crap you keep slapping up onto the boards around here.  I think this site is supposed to be the place for people to analyze the real news more than it is to jump through every rumored hoop before the facts are in.

 

In the first part of the interview the Minister has said that the news of last Sunday about the purchase of 40 F-35 are groundless.

However the original question made was mainly about the current status of the F-X program. The Minister answered it in the second part of the interview and said that he will not comment of the current status of the F-X selection and what has been made public is not the official position of the Japanese MoD.

Let me say that the news of last Sunday about the decision to purchase 40 F-35 was not an the official decision. That news is just telling us the MoD has decided unofficially to selected the F-35 to replace the F-4. It seems to me that the guys in charge of the evaluation picked the F-35 whatever the reason are or may be. Then the political decision need to be made by the Minister himself and then by the Prime Minister.

I can only guess that the Minister of Defense or the Prime Minester of both of them do not like what has been made public. The reason for that is still unknown to me but at the moment it seems to be a wanted or unwanted friction between the guys in uniform and those in civil suits or the public servants and the elected officials, as usual. Also, the Minister said that what went public was related with discussion of the selection before the current government, which means, if it is true, that F-35 was selected months ago.

Finally, the purchase of only 40 F-35 is difficulf to understand as substitute of the F-4. According to my data, if it is right, in the year 2007 they were 118 F-4 (91 fighters and 27 reconnaisanse) aircrafts and we have currently 3 squadrons of F-4, 2 of them figthers (F-4EJ(kai)) and 1 reconnaisanse/figthers ( RF-4E). As you can see the number as not even similar. I know you will tell me one F-35 can do several F-4's job, but I am worry that one F-35 can not be in 2 places at the same time. This is just an opinion I think the workload of the F-4 will continue to be passed to the F-15 (reconnaisanse), F-2 (strike)  and T-4 (training) and later the F-35 will get new duties or will take the workload of those F-15 and F-2. In summary the F-35 is not a direct substitute of the F-4.

Your comments are welcome.