U.S. Was Duplicitous About Marines Relocation To Guam

In 2006 the United States and Japan came to an agreement about the relocation of the Futenma Marine Corp Air Station to Henoko on the coast of Okinawa and the relocation of 8,000 Marines and their dependents to Guam. Under the agreement the Japanese government would bear most of the cost for the move what was never reported and unknown to the public was that the U.S. padded the costs of the relocation.

The United States has padded the expense for the planned relocation of Marine troops to Guam from Okinawa and the number of personnel affected, in an attempt to make Japan's financial burden ratio outwardly smaller, according to U.S. cables posted Wednesday on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

A diplomatic cable dated in December 2008, sent by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to the State Department, showed that $1 billion was included as road construction costs in the relocation expenses during the Japan-U.S. negotiations in April 2006.

What's sad is that this isn't the first time that the United States has misled an Allie over the relocation of one of its bases. Yongsan Garrison located in central Seoul near Itaewon sits on prime real estate in the original agreement South Korea's government was obligated to shoulder more than 80% of the the costs for the bases relocation to Pyeongtaek 90km south of Seoul until the press got a hold of the story and exposed the details agreed to for the relocation.