Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Monday admitted that the nuclear disaster triggered by last March's massive quake and tsunami was far more than the government could deal with and a lack of information threw the country into disarray as the crisis spiraled.
Speaking at a special Diet panel convened to probe the causes of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima nuclear facility in northeast Japan, the site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, Kan said the nuclear disaster special measures in place for such a catastrophe were woefully inadequate.
Kan, who stepped down as the nation's leader in September after 15 months in office, conceded that the nuclear accident was caused by a nuclear plant which operated as "national policy" and as such blame lies squarely with the state.
And being that he was premier at the time, Kan told the investigative panel that as head of state, he was the person in charge and hence was himself to blame.
IN THE THICK OF IT
However, having been publicly vilified for causing a monumental holdup to disaster procedures at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant by making a personal visit to meet the plant's chief a day after the plant was battered by a massive tsunami, Kan still opted to apportion a significant amount of blame on Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the plant's operator.
Former Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda has already gone on the record in the Diet as saying that it took more than an hour for Kan to officially declare a nuclear emergency on the evening of March 11, having been briefed by Kaieda, with Kan's attention being diverted by regular politics.
"While they were desperately trying to confirm the legal basis for these actions, Kan attended a meeting of ruling and opposition party leaders and engaged in other business," said a recent editorial on the matter in a popular Japanese daily.
"Holding back the issuance of the emergency declaration resulted in delays in the efforts by authorities to inform residents near the nuclear station about the accident," the editorial said.
Both Kan and Keida were in agreement that communication between the Prime Minister's office, the Fukushima plant and TEPCO was a shambles in the hours and days after March 11, but Kan on Monday defended his choice to visit the plant personally and in doing so delaying emergency procedures there, claiming he believed he'd get a better command of the situation by talking to the "person in charge".
CULPABILITY
While TEPCO has ardently denied that it intended to withdraw its workers from the stricken plant on March 15 as the disaster continued to escalate, with current President Tsunehisa Katsumata stating "there is no truth" in the claim on Monday, it wasn't until such rumors started circulating that Kan decided to form a crisis task force in TEPCO's headquarters in Tokyo, as opposed to the rag-tag team of ministers that were operating from a basement in his office, and begin to share the same information with the utility.
Kan maintained that the main problem was that information was not forthcoming from TEPCO and in fact it was this that contributed to the seemingly slow response from the government to the disaster.
"From the day the accident occurred, I have heard various stories from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency...and the person sent from Tokyo Electric to explain technical matters, but they did not tell me at all, for example, what was happening at the site, or what was likely to happen there," Kan said.
"I felt the fear of information concerning the on-site situation not being reported to me...It made me feel that in this situation, there is nothing I can do," the former prime minister added.
Some analysts, however, suggest that the burden of responsibility lies with the prime minister's office whose personnel lacked the level of expertise to fully comprehend the ever-growing level of crisis, yet insisted on being involved in the chain of command when it came to key decisions being made.
"Despite independent investigations concluding that Kan being hands-on with TEPCO actually helped to avert a larger crisis and it was indeed Kan who insisted the stricken plant not be evacuated by its personnel, the government blatantly failed to get its own experts communicating with each other and the wider international community as it attempted at first to downplay the incident," said Koichi Ishikawa, a Japan affairs commentator.
"TEPCO is synonymous with government bureaucracy, Kan held up workers' initial response measures by physically being on-site and according to Kan himself the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had 'backtracked and wavered' and the list goes on. Kan is far from being exonerated," Ishikawa said.
COVER-UP
Adding insult to injury, the chief government spokesman during Japan's nuclear crisis Yukio Edano testified Sunday that the public were misled about the extent of the accident, albeit unintentionally.
Edano, who currently serves as the Trade and Industry Minister, conceded at a parliamentary session on Sunday that the government did not fully appreciate the scope of the disaster they were dealing with and as such could not pass on all the facts to the public.
Denying any form of cover-up, Edano also told parliament on Sunday that he was sorry for "our misjudgment".
"The government can apologize all it wants, but the fact of the matter is that official reports have already shown that the government intentionally withheld information about the full danger of the disaster from the Japanese people, local and international media and even the United States," said Ishikawa.
"The U.S. offered to send its nuclear experts to the prime minister's office to help coordinate efforts and ensure the smooth flow of information, but the offer was flatly refused by Edano who insisted Japan maintain its national jurisdiction, which was a huge miscalculation and points to massive negligence, incompetence and, quite likely, deception," he said.
