| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"PagCal" |
| Date: |
13 Mar 2006 03:55:11 AM |
| Object: |
Alexander Haig says Iraq repeats Vietnam mistake |
Haig says U.S. repeating Vietnam mistake
Former Nixon adviser thinks forces in Iraq hamstrung by politicians
Former Secretaries of State Alexander Haig, right, and Henry Kissinger
participate Saturday in the "Vietnam and the Presidency" conference in
Boston.
Updated: 10:01 p.m. ET March 11, 2006
BOSTON - Former Nixon adviser Alexander Haig said military leaders in
Iraq are repeating a mistake made in Vietnam by not applying the full
force of the military to win the war.
“Every asset of the nation must be applied to the conflict to bring
about a quick and successful outcome, or don’t do it,” Haig said. “We’re
in the midst of another struggle where it appears to me we haven’t
learned very much.”
The comments by Haig, also a Secretary of State under President Reagan,
came Saturday at a conference at the John F. Kennedy Presidential
Library and Museum examining the Vietnam War and the American Presidency.
The conference brought together advisers from the Nixon, Johnson and
Kennedy administrations, and talk turned to Iraq where the panelists saw
parallels with Vietnam.
Former Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a rare appearance
at the conference. He said he agreed to come out of admiration for the
Kennedy family.
Kissinger was greeted outside by about 25 protesters who chanted
“Kissinger should go to jail, no bail.” He refused to directly respond
to a question, submitted by the audience and read by a moderator, that
asked if he wanted to apologize for policies that led to so many deaths
in Vietnam.
“This is not the occasion,” Kissinger said. “We have to start from the
assumption that serious people were making serious decisions. So that’s
the sort of question that’s highly inappropriate.”
Kissinger defends Cambodia bombing
In another audience question, Kissinger was asked whether he agreed that
the U.S. bombing of Cambodia led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, and, if
so, was he responsible for the two million people the Khmer Rouge killed?
“The premise that the bombing of a 5-mile strip led to the rise of Khmer
Rouge and the murder of two million people is an example of masochism
that is really inexcusable,” he said.
Kissinger said that the Vietnam War “has fundamentally affected my life
in the sense that the Nixon debate doesn’t ever seem to end and for many
I am the surviving symbol of the Nixon administration.”
Kissinger also spoke about the war in Iraq, saying he supported the
invasion.
“We have a jihadist radical situation,” he said. “If the U.S. fails in
Iraq, then the consequences will be that it motivates more to move
toward the radical side. This is the challenge.”
Former Johnson adviser Jack Valenti said that the lessons of Vietnam
have been “forgotten or ignored” in Iraq.
“No president can win a war when public support for that war begins to
decline and evaporate,” he said.
Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association, added there was
no such thing as a good war, saying “all wars are inhumane, brutal,
callous and full of depravity.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11785513/
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