Saying Iraq is Vietnam hurts troops
Shame on Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., for picking a moment of high danger for U.S. troops in Iraq to declare, in essence, that their activities are in vain. And shame, too, on former Republican Gov. Thomas Kean of New Jersey, chairman of the Sept. 11, 2001, investigating commission, for issuing a prejudgment that the terrorist attacks that day could have been prevented.
At the same time, kudos are in order for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who countered the Kennedy-Byrd claim that Iraq is “another Vietnam” and to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who candidly explained that, to have prevented 9/11, the whole culture of the U.S. government would have had to be different.
Kennedy and Byrd have often and vociferously expressed their opposition to President Bush’s Iraq policy. History may prove them right.
But it’s unconscionable for two senior senators to declare, amid the most serious combat that U.S. troops have faced in months, that they are engaged in, in Kennedy’s words, “a quagmire” — i.e., a war that America should be pulling out of.
Both of them seem to hate Bush so much they couldn’t restrain themselves from comments that, when broadcast to the Middle East, could only demoralize U.S. troops and embolden Iraqi insurgents.
Kennedy first used the line that “Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam” as part of a vitriolic speech in early April at the Brookings Institution in which he accused Bush of lies, smears, despicable cynicism, of undermining national security, the economy and “our very democracy.”
He’s entitled to his opinion, although it’s doubtful that his colleague Sen. John Kerry’s, D-Mass., presidential campaign is helped by having America’s most identifiable liberal as his chief attack dog.
Kennedy certainly can energize the Democratic base, but he’s equally sure to energize Bush’s, and he persuades no independents, swing voters or moderates whatsoever.
Kennedy didn’t stop with merely equating Iraq and Vietnam. While expressing “enormous admiration” and “whole-hearted support” for the troops, he said, “Vietnam ended up in a quagmire, Iraq is ending up a quagmire. … We need a new start in Iraq to bring our troops home safely.”
Kennedy didn’t fully spell out the logic of his argument: If you’re in “another Vietnam,” you pull out. Byrd did so, however. “Pouring more U.S. troops into Iraq is not the path to extricate ourselves,” he said.
Prompted or not, America’s new sworn enemy, Shiite firebrand Muqtada Al Sadr, picked up on the theme, calling on the American people to align with him or “Iraq will be another Vietnam for America.”
Leading Democrats, including presidential hopeful John Kerry, have kept clear of blaming the Bush administration for 9/11, but in flurries of e-mail traffic the supposedly nonpartisan Center for American Progress and emphatically partisan America Coming Together have charged that Bush had sufficient warning to have prevented the attacks.
Condoleezza Rice countered effectively, admitting that neither the Clinton nor the Bush administration had adequately altered the government’s intelligence and law enforcement structures to deal with the threat of attacks inside the United States. Rice testified that what Bush is doing now in Iraq is an attempt to deal with the root causes of that threat: the lack of democracy and opportunity in the Middle East. The United States is trying to build a model in Iraq.
It may not work. If it doesn’t, those who opposed the effort will succeed politically and Bush will fail. But in the midst of serious combat, responsible Americans shouldn’t say things that will help the enemy.
Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.