Vietnam Shades Warner's Iraq Stand - Silent Then, Senator Won't Be This Time

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701478.html


By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 28, 2007; Page A01

Virginia Sen. John W. Warner's words betray the guilt he still carries about the Vietnam War and help explain why this pillar of the Republican establishment is leading a bipartisan revolt against the war plans of a president in his own party.

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, the former Navy secretary said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office. "The Army generals would come in, 'Just send in another five or ten thousand.' You know, month after month. Another ten or fifteen thousand. They thought they could win it. We kept surging in those years. It didn't work."

Is that a lesson for what's going on in Iraq?

"Well, you don't forget something like that," he answers. There is a long pause, he closes his eyes and his voice gets softer. "No. You don't forget those things."

More than 30 years after Vietnam, Warner is once again watching as generals propose additional troops. But this time, he's not staying silent. In a rebuke to President Bush, Warner is leading an effort to have the U.S. Senate declare a lack of confidence in the administration's plans to send 21,500 additional soldiers into the Iraqi war zone.

[illinoisprogressive]

1. Alot of them are revisiting vietnam and never dealt with those issues

[JohnnyLib2]

2. I admire his stand on this issue and wish others would follow.

'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' Santayana.

[Change has come]

3. I would be more impressed

Had Senator Warner been remembering the lessons of Vietnam these last 4 years. This resolution appears to be an attempt to prevent a stronger resolution backed by Democrats from being passed with strong bipartisan support.

*snip*

Stepping forward, Mr. Warner said he recalled the erosion of public and Congressional support for the Vietnam war, when he was Navy secretary.

Now, while saying their resolution opposed the increase, it only urged Mr. Bush to consider other alternate plans.

The resolution offered last week by Senators Joseph R Biden Jr., a Delaware Democrat, and Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, flatly rejected the troop increase in much stronger language.

The Republican senators said today that they believed their resolution might gain broader-based support because it was less confrontational.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/war-at-home-another-senate-resolution/

[TahitiNut]

4. WW2 Navy veteran (1945-6), Korean War Marine Corps veteran, & Secretary of the Navy from 1972-1974

He should've known better ... a long time ago.




President George W. Bush signs into law H.R. 5122, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 in the Oval Office at the White House. Joining him are, from left: Vice President Dick Cheney, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, and General Peter Pace, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

:puke: