The Marine corps commander in the Pacific, Wallace Gregson, told reporters here that no decisions had been made, but such a move was one option under discussion.

"In my view, the best reason to move anyone from Okinawa to Japan is if it enhances our combined training with Japanese forces," the lieutenant general said.

He said the Marines have stepped up training with Japanese self-defense forces amid Tokyo's willingness to give its forces greater latitude under Japan's post-World War II pacifist constitution.

"If we do move anybody to mainland Japan either on a rotational basis or a permanent basis, I would hope we would be able to continue to expand our involvement with the Japanese self-defense forces," Gregson said.

The presence of some 17,000 Marines on Okinawa, which was captured by US forces in 1945 and returned to Japan in 1972, has been a sore point in bilateral relations since three US service members raped a Okinawan schoolgirl by in 1995.

Gregson said the military's relations with Okinawans was better than advertised, however, noting that polls show most locals favor the US military presence. Marines stationed there have the corps' highest retention and re-enlistment rates, he said.

"The general impression outside Okinawa is (that) we're two warring camps separated by a Cyclone fence and at each other's throats all the time," he said. "That could not be further from the truth."

About 3,000 Marines stationed in Okinawa are now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The general said, however, plans were for them to return once the situation in Iraq settles down.

Gregson indicated that moving the Marines to Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, was not an attractive alternative.

"I think moving away from Japan moves us away from where the need is and where most of the problems are likely to occur," he said.

"We are in Guam frequently now, for various training evolutions and things, but basing there would be moving away," he said.

He said the US-Japan alliance was moving toward "more and more combined efforts by both the Japanese and the United States to do those things throughout Southeast Asia and South Asia that we need to do in other places, which is to help the governments down there to extend the instruments of good government over their own territories so we can prevent Asia from developing some of the same problems we see in the Middle East."

WAR.WIRE