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 TOKYO (AP) - Japan's defense minister resigned Tuesday after suggesting the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inevitable, a remark that stirred furious criticism in a nation where many consider the attacks an unjustified slaughter of civilians.
Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, a native of Nagasaki, said he did not mean to condone the 1945 bombings, which Washington has argued were necessary to end World War II without a potentially bloody land invasion.
"I just meant that there was nothing we could do about it," he said after tendering his resignation to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose administration has seen its popularity plunge ahead of parliamentary elections this month. "I don't think people understood what I meant."
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