TOKYO A local assembly on the Japanese island of Okinawa on Wednesday demanded the U.S. military chief there be sacked for calling local administrators "nuts" and "wimps."

The assembly of Okinawa City, where the sprawling U.S. Kadena air base is located, adopted a resolution calling for the dismissal of Lieutenant General Earl Hailston, commander of the U.S. forces on the Okinawan chain.

"The resolution was unanimously adopted and will be addressed to U.S. President George Bush and other leaders," said Hidoshi Chinen, a prefectural official charged with U.S. military affairs.

"It strongly demands the commander apologize for the remarks and be removed from his post," Chinen added, according to AFP.

It was unprecedented that a local assembly in Okinawa demanded the removal of a U.S. military commander, he said.

Hailston made the comments in an e-mail sent to his officers on January 23 following the passage of an unprecedented resolution by the Okinawa prefectural assembly calling for a reduction in the number of U.S. forces on the islands.

The resolution was prompted by the January 9 arrest of a marine sergeant for taking indecent "upskirt" photographs of a local schoolgirl, the latest in a succession of assaults and sex attacks on local women by U.S. servicemen.

The 1995 rape of a schoolgirl in Okinawa by three U.S. servicemen sparked mass protests demanding the removal of U.S. forces from Okinawa, a strategic island chain within striking distance of China and the Korean Peninsula.

The U.S. administration of the then-president Bill Clinton later promised to cut back U.S. bases on Okinawa, including a huge marine air station which has inhibited urban redevelopment.