Former official touts military loosening for Japan

Aug 15 was Victory over Japan Day. In 1947, two years after Japan surrendered, ending World War II, it adopted a new constitution drafted largely by US lawyers.

Sixty-five years on, a former high-ranking US government official is calling a particular article of the constitution an impediment to the alliance between the US and Japan.

Referring to Article 9 of Japan's "Peace Constitution", which prohibits an act of war by the state and bans use of force to settle international disputes, former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said: "We ... describe this as an impediment to our alliance cooperation. I don't think one can argue that fact."