Behind Bush's History Lesson
By Michael Abramowitz | August 27, 2007
Karl Rove may be leaving the Bush administration, but at least one aspect of Rovism -- the effort to try to pivot off a perceived political liability and turn it into a strength -- seems hard-wired into the White House psyche.
That could be seen in President Bush's widely discussed speech last week drawing lessons from America's engagement in Asia since World War II. From the beginning of the Iraq War, the White House has resisted analogies to Vietnam, apparently convinced that any association with such an unpopular venture was a political loser for the president.
When Bush was asked at a news conference in June 2006 whether he saw any parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, he replied with a simple "No."
That posture changed markedly with Bush's Kansas City, Mo., address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as the president waded into the thicket of Vietnam reinterpretation. While suggesting that he did not want to re-litigate the war, Bush sought to focus the audience on what he described as the horrific consequences of the U.S. withdrawal -- Vietnamese reeducation camps in which many perished and the hundreds of thousands of people murdered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
The inference was clear: The people who think America can get out of Iraq with minimal human costs are sadly mistaken. "Whatever your position is on that debate," Bush said, "one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 'reeducation camps' and 'killing fields.' "
More than many other Bush's speeches these days, this one hit a nerve, with commentary filling up the blogosphere from the left, right and all points in between. Many believed that the president was whitewashing the mistakes that landed the United States in a quagmire.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday, Boston University professor Andrew J. Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran, accused Bush of being "oblivious to the history that actually matters." In the Houston Chronicle, Robert Buzzanco, a professor at the University of Houston, said Bush missed the point that it was U.S. intervention in Cambodia that caused the rise of the Khmer Rouge -- an interpretation still hotly debated three decades later.
Military author Max Boot, by contrast, hailed Bush's analogy in the Wall Street Journal but said he should have gone further in laying out the lessons of Vietnam and the dangers of withdrawal.
White House officials seemed pleased with the attention to the speech. Even with the negative commentary in many quarters -- predictable, in their view -- the feeling seemed to be that they needed to do something to shake up and reframe the debate over Iraq as the Sept. 15 date approaches for a new administration assessment of the war. "Now is the time to use that argument," said one White House ally who has been involved in the war policy debate.
White House counselor Edward W. Gillespie, who oversees the speechwriting department, suggested that there was little hesitation about including the discussion of Vietnam in last week's speech, especially since Bush discussed the other great conflicts in Asia. "To have talked about South Korea and Japan, and not about Vietnam, you couldn't do that," he said.
But some outside the administration saw greater significance in the White House move. "They have not used this analogy up until now," said Peter W. Rodman, a Defense Department official in the Bush administration. Rodman co-wrote a recent New York Times op-ed with the British journalist William Shawcross, cited by Bush last week, laying out what they believe to have been the grim consequences of U.S. withdrawal from Indochina. "I have always thought they were good debating points," he added.
Whether they resonate won't be known until the fall.
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
IHT : Bush challenged on Iraq-Vietnam analogy
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Bush challenged on Iraq-Vietnam analogy
By Thom Shanker | August 22, 2007
WASHINGTON: The American withdrawal from Vietnam is widely remembered as an ignominious end to a misguided war - but one that cleared a path for Vietnam to become a unified and stable nation, with healthy ties to the United States.
Now, in urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, President George W. Bush is challenging that history.
In reminding Americans on Wednesday that the pullout in 1975 was followed by years of upheaval in Southeast Asia, Bush argued that the lessons of Vietnam provide reason to stay in Iraq, rather than to leave anytime soon. Bush in essence accused his war critics of amnesia over the exodus of Vietnamese "boat people" refugees and for mass killings in Cambodia that upended the lives of millions of people.
Bush is right on the historic record, according to historians and scholars of military and international affairs. But many of those experts also quarreled with his drawing analogies to predict what might happen in Iraq should the United States withdraw.
"It is undoubtedly true that America's failure in Vietnam led to catastrophic consequences in the region, especially in Cambodia," said David Hendrickson, a specialist on the history of American foreign policy at Colorado College.
"But there are a couple of further points that need weighing," he added. "One is that the Khmer Rouge would never have come to power in the absence of the war in Vietnam - this dark force arose out of the circumstances of the war, was in a deep sense created by the war. The same thing has happened in the Middle East today. Foreign occupation of Iraq has created far more terrorists than it has deterred."
The American withdrawal from Vietnam was hardly abrupt, and lasted much longer than many people remember. The American drawdown actually began in 1968, after the Tet offensive, a military defeat for the communist guerrillas and their North Vietnamese sponsors but one that also illustrated the vulnerability of the United States and its South Vietnamese allies. Although American commanders asked for several hundred thousand reinforcements after Tet, President Lyndon Johnson turned them down, and President Richard Nixon began a process of "Vietnamization" in which power was gradually handed over to local security forces.
"It was not a precipitous withdrawal, it was a very deliberate disengagement," said Andrew Bacevich, a platoon leader in Vietnam and now professor of international relations at Boston University.
"The Vietnam comparison should invite us to think harder about how to minimize the consequences of our military failure," he added. "If one is really concerned about the Iraqi people, and the fate that may be awaiting them as this war winds down, then we ought to get serious about opening our doors and to welcoming to the United States those Iraqis who have supported us.' '
To that end, some members of Congress and human rights groups have urged the Bush administration to drop the limits on Iraqi refugees admitted to the United States.
In his speech Wednesday, Bush also sought to inspire renewed support for his Iraq strategy by recalling the years of national sacrifice during World War II, and the commitment required to rebuild two of history's most aggressive and lawless adversaries, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, into two of this nation's most reliable and responsible allies.
But historians note that Germany and Japan were homogenous nation-states with no internal feuding among factions or sects, in stark contrast to Iraq today.
The comparison of Iraq to Germany and Japan "is fanciful," said Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He noted that the American and Allied militaries had completely eliminated the governments of Japan and Germany and assembled occupation forces that were proportionately more than three times as large as the current American presence of 160,000 troops in Iraq.
"That's the kind of troop level you need to control the situation," Simon said. "The occupation of Germany and Japan lasted for years - and not a single American soldier was killed by insurgents."
Senior U.S. military officers, speaking privately, also say that the essential elements that brought victory in World War II - a total commitment on the part of the American people, and a staggering economic commitment to rebuild defeated adversaries - do not exist for the war in Iraq today. The wars in Korea and Vietnam also involved considerable national sacrifice, including tax increases and conscription.
While Bush sought to draw historic parallels for Iraq to America's overseas battlegrounds, some military officers say the nation's civilian leaders need to compare their efforts in Washington to those of their predecessors.
"We didn't win World War II until the Marshall Plan," said one field-grade American military officer who has served in Iraq. "This is ultimately a long war for the soul of Islam. And we do not yet have a Marshall Plan for the new Middle East. We need to help the moderate governments of the Middle East. We have to have an incredible effort to eliminate poverty and provide housing and jobs across the Islamic world. The scale of the effort would dwarf the Marshall Plan, and we have not even acknowledged that is what is required."
By Thom Shanker | August 22, 2007
WASHINGTON: The American withdrawal from Vietnam is widely remembered as an ignominious end to a misguided war - but one that cleared a path for Vietnam to become a unified and stable nation, with healthy ties to the United States.
Now, in urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, President George W. Bush is challenging that history.
In reminding Americans on Wednesday that the pullout in 1975 was followed by years of upheaval in Southeast Asia, Bush argued that the lessons of Vietnam provide reason to stay in Iraq, rather than to leave anytime soon. Bush in essence accused his war critics of amnesia over the exodus of Vietnamese "boat people" refugees and for mass killings in Cambodia that upended the lives of millions of people.
Bush is right on the historic record, according to historians and scholars of military and international affairs. But many of those experts also quarreled with his drawing analogies to predict what might happen in Iraq should the United States withdraw.
"It is undoubtedly true that America's failure in Vietnam led to catastrophic consequences in the region, especially in Cambodia," said David Hendrickson, a specialist on the history of American foreign policy at Colorado College.
"But there are a couple of further points that need weighing," he added. "One is that the Khmer Rouge would never have come to power in the absence of the war in Vietnam - this dark force arose out of the circumstances of the war, was in a deep sense created by the war. The same thing has happened in the Middle East today. Foreign occupation of Iraq has created far more terrorists than it has deterred."
The American withdrawal from Vietnam was hardly abrupt, and lasted much longer than many people remember. The American drawdown actually began in 1968, after the Tet offensive, a military defeat for the communist guerrillas and their North Vietnamese sponsors but one that also illustrated the vulnerability of the United States and its South Vietnamese allies. Although American commanders asked for several hundred thousand reinforcements after Tet, President Lyndon Johnson turned them down, and President Richard Nixon began a process of "Vietnamization" in which power was gradually handed over to local security forces.
"It was not a precipitous withdrawal, it was a very deliberate disengagement," said Andrew Bacevich, a platoon leader in Vietnam and now professor of international relations at Boston University.
"The Vietnam comparison should invite us to think harder about how to minimize the consequences of our military failure," he added. "If one is really concerned about the Iraqi people, and the fate that may be awaiting them as this war winds down, then we ought to get serious about opening our doors and to welcoming to the United States those Iraqis who have supported us.' '
To that end, some members of Congress and human rights groups have urged the Bush administration to drop the limits on Iraqi refugees admitted to the United States.
In his speech Wednesday, Bush also sought to inspire renewed support for his Iraq strategy by recalling the years of national sacrifice during World War II, and the commitment required to rebuild two of history's most aggressive and lawless adversaries, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, into two of this nation's most reliable and responsible allies.
But historians note that Germany and Japan were homogenous nation-states with no internal feuding among factions or sects, in stark contrast to Iraq today.
The comparison of Iraq to Germany and Japan "is fanciful," said Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He noted that the American and Allied militaries had completely eliminated the governments of Japan and Germany and assembled occupation forces that were proportionately more than three times as large as the current American presence of 160,000 troops in Iraq.
"That's the kind of troop level you need to control the situation," Simon said. "The occupation of Germany and Japan lasted for years - and not a single American soldier was killed by insurgents."
Senior U.S. military officers, speaking privately, also say that the essential elements that brought victory in World War II - a total commitment on the part of the American people, and a staggering economic commitment to rebuild defeated adversaries - do not exist for the war in Iraq today. The wars in Korea and Vietnam also involved considerable national sacrifice, including tax increases and conscription.
While Bush sought to draw historic parallels for Iraq to America's overseas battlegrounds, some military officers say the nation's civilian leaders need to compare their efforts in Washington to those of their predecessors.
"We didn't win World War II until the Marshall Plan," said one field-grade American military officer who has served in Iraq. "This is ultimately a long war for the soul of Islam. And we do not yet have a Marshall Plan for the new Middle East. We need to help the moderate governments of the Middle East. We have to have an incredible effort to eliminate poverty and provide housing and jobs across the Islamic world. The scale of the effort would dwarf the Marshall Plan, and we have not even acknowledged that is what is required."
IHT : Bush Iraq War analogy strikes a nerve in Vietnam
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Bush Iraq War analogy strikes a nerve in Vietnam
The Associated Press | August 23, 2007
HANOI, Vietnam: U.S. President George W. Bush's latest effort to rally support for his Iraq policy has touched a nerve in Vietnam, where a previous American military intervention led to the deaths of millions of people.
In a speech to U.S. war veterans on Wednesday, Bush invoked the Vietnam War, saying that widespread death and chaos would envelop Iraq if the U.S. troops left too quickly, as he said happened when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam three decades ago.
But people in Vietnam, where opposition to the U.S. intervention in Iraq is strong, said Thursday that Bush had drawn the wrong conclusions from the Southeast Asian conflict.
"Doesn't he realize that if the U.S. had stayed in Vietnam longer, they would have killed more people?" said Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran who fought against the U.S. troops in Vietnam. "Nobody regrets that the Vietnam War wasn't prolonged except Bush."
Vietnam's official government spokesman offered a more measured response during a regular media briefing Thursday.
"With regard to the American war in Vietnam, everyone knows that we fought to defend our country and that this was a righteous war of the Vietnamese people," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung. "And we all know that the war caused tremendous suffering and losses to the Vietnamese people."
Dung said Vietnam hoped that the Iraq conflict would be resolved "very soon, in an orderly way, and that the Iraqi people will do their best to rebuild their country."
Although Vietnam opposed the U.S. intervention in Iraq, Dung stressed that ties between Hanoi and Washington have been growing closer since the former foes normalized relations in 1995.
In his remarks to U.S. military veterans in Kansas City, Missouri, on Wednesday, Bush said that a hasty retreat from Iraq would lead to terrible violence.
"One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,'" Bush said.
Many people in Vietnam said Bush's comparison was ill-considered.
The U.S. could not have overcome the will of the Vietnamese people no matter how many bombs it dropped, said Trieu, the Vietnamese veteran.
"Does he think the U.S. could have won if they had stayed longer?" Trieu asked. "No way."
The only way to restore order in Iraq is for the U.S. to leave, said Trinh Xuan Thang, a Hanoi university student.
"Bush sent troops to invade Iraq and created all the problems there," said Thang, adding, "Suicide bombing was unheard of before."
If the U.S. withdraws, he said, the violence may escalate in the short term but the situation will eventually stabilize.
"Let the Iraqis determine their fate by themselves," Thang said. "They don't need American troops there."
Bush was unwise to stir up sensitive memories of the Vietnam conflict, said Ton Nu Thi Ninh, former chairwoman of the National Assembly's committee on foreign affairs.
"The price we, the Vietnamese people on both sides, paid during the war was due to the fact that the Americans went into Vietnam in the first place," Ninh said.
The Associated Press | August 23, 2007
HANOI, Vietnam: U.S. President George W. Bush's latest effort to rally support for his Iraq policy has touched a nerve in Vietnam, where a previous American military intervention led to the deaths of millions of people.
In a speech to U.S. war veterans on Wednesday, Bush invoked the Vietnam War, saying that widespread death and chaos would envelop Iraq if the U.S. troops left too quickly, as he said happened when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam three decades ago.
But people in Vietnam, where opposition to the U.S. intervention in Iraq is strong, said Thursday that Bush had drawn the wrong conclusions from the Southeast Asian conflict.
"Doesn't he realize that if the U.S. had stayed in Vietnam longer, they would have killed more people?" said Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran who fought against the U.S. troops in Vietnam. "Nobody regrets that the Vietnam War wasn't prolonged except Bush."
Vietnam's official government spokesman offered a more measured response during a regular media briefing Thursday.
"With regard to the American war in Vietnam, everyone knows that we fought to defend our country and that this was a righteous war of the Vietnamese people," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung. "And we all know that the war caused tremendous suffering and losses to the Vietnamese people."
Dung said Vietnam hoped that the Iraq conflict would be resolved "very soon, in an orderly way, and that the Iraqi people will do their best to rebuild their country."
Although Vietnam opposed the U.S. intervention in Iraq, Dung stressed that ties between Hanoi and Washington have been growing closer since the former foes normalized relations in 1995.
In his remarks to U.S. military veterans in Kansas City, Missouri, on Wednesday, Bush said that a hasty retreat from Iraq would lead to terrible violence.
"One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,'" Bush said.
Many people in Vietnam said Bush's comparison was ill-considered.
The U.S. could not have overcome the will of the Vietnamese people no matter how many bombs it dropped, said Trieu, the Vietnamese veteran.
"Does he think the U.S. could have won if they had stayed longer?" Trieu asked. "No way."
The only way to restore order in Iraq is for the U.S. to leave, said Trinh Xuan Thang, a Hanoi university student.
"Bush sent troops to invade Iraq and created all the problems there," said Thang, adding, "Suicide bombing was unheard of before."
If the U.S. withdraws, he said, the violence may escalate in the short term but the situation will eventually stabilize.
"Let the Iraqis determine their fate by themselves," Thang said. "They don't need American troops there."
Bush was unwise to stir up sensitive memories of the Vietnam conflict, said Ton Nu Thi Ninh, former chairwoman of the National Assembly's committee on foreign affairs.
"The price we, the Vietnamese people on both sides, paid during the war was due to the fact that the Americans went into Vietnam in the first place," Ninh said.
Reuters : Bush cites past conflicts to urge staying in Iraq
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bush cites past conflicts to urge staying in Iraq
By Caren Bohan | August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday tried to reinforce his case for perseverance in Iraq by placing the unpopular war in the historical context of the U.S. experience in Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, but critics said he missed the mark.
Speaking to thousand of veterans, many of whom served in Asia, Bush laid the groundwork for a key mid-September report on Iraq that is expected to show some progress on the security front but little in the way of political reconciliation.
Bush said it was in the U.S. interests to continue to work to stabilize Iraq and held out the modern democracies in Japan and South Korea as potential models. He also raised the example of the emergence the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence in Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of leaving Iraq.
"Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us," he said.
The comparison Bush drew to Vietnam was a risky argument and one his administration has tended to avoid in the past.
Many Democrats have likened Iraq to Vietnam, calling the war a quagmire that has exacted a big toll in American lives and treasure without furthering U.S. interests.
Bush also used his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to insist that he supported Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, despite comments he made a day earlier highlighting frustration with the Iraqi leader's inability to reconcile warring factions there.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, a good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. That's up to the Iraqi people."
Bush said that like World War Two, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the war in Iraq was an "ideological struggle" as he again depicted the conflict as part of the broader U.S. "war on terror."
"The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity," Bush said.
"Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own: a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance and dissent," he added.
Pressure is building on Bush over Iraq in the run-up to the release of a report to Congress due by September 15 by U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
That report will evaluate the progress of the troop buildup Bush ordered early this year aimed at reducing the violence there and comes as the Democratic-led Congress steps up its effort to bring about a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada dismissed Bush's historical comparisons and said the decision to invade Iraq was "one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history."
Reid pledged Democrats would seek in coming weeks to force a change in Bush's "failed strategy in Iraq."
Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Bush for the presidency in 2004, said Bush's comparison to that war was "irresponsible" and "ignorant."
"It is unfortunate that President Bush would want to invoke a false comparison of Vietnam to Iraq, but not surprising that he would oversimplify the differences and overlook the tragic similarities," said Kerry, who served in Vietnam.
"If the President wants to heed the lessons of Vietnam, he should change course and change course now," he added.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)
© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
By Caren Bohan | August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday tried to reinforce his case for perseverance in Iraq by placing the unpopular war in the historical context of the U.S. experience in Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, but critics said he missed the mark.
Speaking to thousand of veterans, many of whom served in Asia, Bush laid the groundwork for a key mid-September report on Iraq that is expected to show some progress on the security front but little in the way of political reconciliation.
Bush said it was in the U.S. interests to continue to work to stabilize Iraq and held out the modern democracies in Japan and South Korea as potential models. He also raised the example of the emergence the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence in Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of leaving Iraq.
"Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us," he said.
The comparison Bush drew to Vietnam was a risky argument and one his administration has tended to avoid in the past.
Many Democrats have likened Iraq to Vietnam, calling the war a quagmire that has exacted a big toll in American lives and treasure without furthering U.S. interests.
Bush also used his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to insist that he supported Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, despite comments he made a day earlier highlighting frustration with the Iraqi leader's inability to reconcile warring factions there.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, a good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. That's up to the Iraqi people."
Bush said that like World War Two, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the war in Iraq was an "ideological struggle" as he again depicted the conflict as part of the broader U.S. "war on terror."
"The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity," Bush said.
"Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own: a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance and dissent," he added.
Pressure is building on Bush over Iraq in the run-up to the release of a report to Congress due by September 15 by U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
That report will evaluate the progress of the troop buildup Bush ordered early this year aimed at reducing the violence there and comes as the Democratic-led Congress steps up its effort to bring about a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada dismissed Bush's historical comparisons and said the decision to invade Iraq was "one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history."
Reid pledged Democrats would seek in coming weeks to force a change in Bush's "failed strategy in Iraq."
Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Bush for the presidency in 2004, said Bush's comparison to that war was "irresponsible" and "ignorant."
"It is unfortunate that President Bush would want to invoke a false comparison of Vietnam to Iraq, but not surprising that he would oversimplify the differences and overlook the tragic similarities," said Kerry, who served in Vietnam.
"If the President wants to heed the lessons of Vietnam, he should change course and change course now," he added.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)
© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
CNN : Bush invokes 'tragedy of Vietnam' against Iraq pullout
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bush invokes 'tragedy of Vietnam' against Iraq pullout
August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) -- President Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.
"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.
The White House billed the speech, as it did with next week's address to the American Legion, as an effort to "provide broader context" for the debate over the upcoming Iraq progress report by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad.
Bush also sought to shore up the perception of his support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, after voicing some frustration with him on Tuesday.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. Video Watch Bush reiterate his support for al-Maliki »
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said Bush had drawn the wrong lesson from history:
"America lost the war in Vietnam because our troops were trapped in a distant country we did not understand supporting a government that lacked sufficient legitimacy with its people," Kennedy said in a statement.
Sen. Joe Biden, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, invoked his own Vietnam analogy in a statement released after the speech:
"It's the president's policies that are pushing us toward another Saigon moment -- with helicopters fleeing the roof of our embassy -- which he says he wants to avoid."
Biden said that Bush continues to cling to the premise that Iraqis will rally behind a strong central government, but he believes that will not happen.
"There's no trust within the Iraqi government; no trust of the government by the Iraqi people; no capacity of that government to deliver security or services; and no prospect that it will build that trust or capacity any time soon," Biden's statement said.
But House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said more Democrats are "bucking their party leaders" in acknowledging progress in Iraq.
"Many rank-and-file Democrats have seen this progress firsthand and are now acknowledging the successes of a strategy they've repeatedly opposed," Boehner said in a statement. "But Democratic leaders, deeply invested in losing the war, would rather move the goalposts and claim that a precipitous withdrawal is the right approach despite the overwhelming evidence of significant progress."
On Tuesday, Bush had expressed frustration with the pace of progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq, saying that if the Iraqi government doesn't "respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday shot back at criticism of his government, including pointed remarks from a U.S. senator who called his administration "nonfunctioning" and urged Iraq's parliament to turn it out of office.
Speaking at a press conference in the Syrian capital of Damascus, al-Maliki characterized such comments as "irresponsible" and said they "overstep the bounds of diplomatic and political courtesy."
Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh told CNN that al-Maliki was referring to comments made Monday by Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, who called on Iraq's parliament to turn al-Maliki's "nonfunctioning" government out of office when it returns in two weeks.
Levin said al-Maliki's government was "too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders" to reach a political settlement that would end the country's sectarian and insurgent violence.
In his speech, Bush said that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today's terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam.
"Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently," Bush said.
President Bush has frequently asked lawmakers -- and the American people -- to withhold judgment on his troop "surge" in Iraq until the report comes out in September.
It is being closely watched on Capitol Hill, particularly by Republicans nervous about the political fallout from an increasingly unpopular war.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would wait for the report before deciding when a drawdown of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq might begin.
Bush's speeches Wednesday and next week are the latest attempts by the White House to try to reframe the debate over Iraq, as public support for the war continues to sag.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans -- 64 percent -- now oppose the Iraq war, and 72 percent say that even if Petraeus reports progress, it won't change their opinion.
The poll also found a great deal of skepticism about the report; 53 percent said they do not trust Petraeus to give an accurate assessment of the situation in Iraq.
In addition to his analogy to Vietnam, Bush referred to previous conflicts in Asia in talking about the war against terror in Iraq.
"There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we are fighting today," Bush said. "But one important similarity is that at their core, they are all ideological struggles.
"The militarists of Japan and the Communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others."
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Bush said history proved skeptics wrong about Japan's ability to become a free society and will prove those who want to withdraw from Iraq wrong.
"In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then, as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom," Bush said. "Today, in defiance of the critics, Japan ... stands as one of the world's great free societies."
August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) -- President Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.
"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.
The White House billed the speech, as it did with next week's address to the American Legion, as an effort to "provide broader context" for the debate over the upcoming Iraq progress report by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad.
Bush also sought to shore up the perception of his support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, after voicing some frustration with him on Tuesday.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. Video Watch Bush reiterate his support for al-Maliki »
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said Bush had drawn the wrong lesson from history:
"America lost the war in Vietnam because our troops were trapped in a distant country we did not understand supporting a government that lacked sufficient legitimacy with its people," Kennedy said in a statement.
Sen. Joe Biden, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, invoked his own Vietnam analogy in a statement released after the speech:
"It's the president's policies that are pushing us toward another Saigon moment -- with helicopters fleeing the roof of our embassy -- which he says he wants to avoid."
Biden said that Bush continues to cling to the premise that Iraqis will rally behind a strong central government, but he believes that will not happen.
"There's no trust within the Iraqi government; no trust of the government by the Iraqi people; no capacity of that government to deliver security or services; and no prospect that it will build that trust or capacity any time soon," Biden's statement said.
But House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said more Democrats are "bucking their party leaders" in acknowledging progress in Iraq.
"Many rank-and-file Democrats have seen this progress firsthand and are now acknowledging the successes of a strategy they've repeatedly opposed," Boehner said in a statement. "But Democratic leaders, deeply invested in losing the war, would rather move the goalposts and claim that a precipitous withdrawal is the right approach despite the overwhelming evidence of significant progress."
On Tuesday, Bush had expressed frustration with the pace of progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq, saying that if the Iraqi government doesn't "respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday shot back at criticism of his government, including pointed remarks from a U.S. senator who called his administration "nonfunctioning" and urged Iraq's parliament to turn it out of office.
Speaking at a press conference in the Syrian capital of Damascus, al-Maliki characterized such comments as "irresponsible" and said they "overstep the bounds of diplomatic and political courtesy."
Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh told CNN that al-Maliki was referring to comments made Monday by Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, who called on Iraq's parliament to turn al-Maliki's "nonfunctioning" government out of office when it returns in two weeks.
Levin said al-Maliki's government was "too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders" to reach a political settlement that would end the country's sectarian and insurgent violence.
In his speech, Bush said that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today's terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam.
"Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently," Bush said.
President Bush has frequently asked lawmakers -- and the American people -- to withhold judgment on his troop "surge" in Iraq until the report comes out in September.
It is being closely watched on Capitol Hill, particularly by Republicans nervous about the political fallout from an increasingly unpopular war.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would wait for the report before deciding when a drawdown of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq might begin.
Bush's speeches Wednesday and next week are the latest attempts by the White House to try to reframe the debate over Iraq, as public support for the war continues to sag.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans -- 64 percent -- now oppose the Iraq war, and 72 percent say that even if Petraeus reports progress, it won't change their opinion.
The poll also found a great deal of skepticism about the report; 53 percent said they do not trust Petraeus to give an accurate assessment of the situation in Iraq.
In addition to his analogy to Vietnam, Bush referred to previous conflicts in Asia in talking about the war against terror in Iraq.
"There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we are fighting today," Bush said. "But one important similarity is that at their core, they are all ideological struggles.
"The militarists of Japan and the Communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others."
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Bush said history proved skeptics wrong about Japan's ability to become a free society and will prove those who want to withdraw from Iraq wrong.
"In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then, as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom," Bush said. "Today, in defiance of the critics, Japan ... stands as one of the world's great free societies."
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