Kissinger likes divisions over Iraq war to Vietnam
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has drawn parallels between the sliding scale of support in the Iraq and Vietnam wars.
He said he had a “very uneasy feeling” that the same factors which damaged support for the conflict in Vietnam were surfacing over concerns for Iraq.
“For me, the tragedy of Vietnam was the divisions that occurred in the United States that made it, in the end, impossible to achieve an outcome that was compatible with the sacrifices that had been made,” he told CNN.
There is growing uneasiness over the Iraq war in the US, fuelled recently by a sharp increase in soldiers’ deaths.
The majority of Americans no longer believe the US will win the war, according to latest polls, while more than half believe the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
The latest CNN/USA Gallup poll, taken earlier this month, found that 54% of those surveyed thought the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
Kissinger stressed that the US should withdraw troops that were not necessary to the goal of stabilising Iraq.
“But we cannot begin with an exit without having first defined what the objective is,” he added.
“If a radical government emerges in Baghdad or if any part of Iraq becomes what Afghanistan used to be, a training ground for terrorists, then this will be a catastrophe for the Islamic world and for Europe... reluctant as they may be to admit it, and eventually for us.”
President George Bush said last week that pulling troops from Iraq would send the wrong signal to insurgents.
He said he had “heard the voices of those who say pull out now,” and had thought about it.
“I just strongly disagree,” he said.
| Related Stories: |
|
