Bush glimpses Vietnam war's unfinished business
HANOI - For all the talk of laying to rest the ghosts of a wartime past,
President George W. Bush had a grim reminder on Saturday of some of America's unfinished business from the Vietnam war.
Taking a break from diplomacy on the second day of his trip to Vietnam, Bush visited the joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, where U.S. experts are working to find and identify the remains of American war dead.
It was only a brief stop for Bush, the second post-war U.S. president to visit Vietnam. Bush has made clear that rather than dwelling on old animosities, he wants to focus on Vietnam as an emerging trade partner and economic success story.
In keeping with that approach, Bush asked few questions of his military briefers as he moved briskly and almost without expression from one display to another in the courtyard of a two-storey colonial-style building housing the U.S. mission.
But the nature of their work was clear. Laid out before him was a rusted helmet, a dilapidated machinegun, a rotted combat boot and even plaster replicas of human bones investigators have unearthed at sights across Southeast Asia.
One officer told Bush how the Vietnamese military, once a deadly foe, now transports U.S. teams on giant Russian-made transport helicopters when they need to excavate remote sites.
Bush brought up the issue of MIAs, the official term for the more than 1,500 service members still listed as missing in action in Vietnam, with the country's Communist leaders in talks on Friday dominated by talk of trade and economics.
"He thanked the Vietnamese for strong cooperation," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
Top priority
Accounting for America's missing from the war, in which some 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese died, has been a top priority of U.S. veterans' groups who have pressured successive post-war administrations.
Bill Clinton, who in 2000 became the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam, made Vietnamese help in the search a key condition for normalizing relations in 1995.
Bush's visit stood in sharp contrast to the trip by Clinton, a fellow baby boomer who never fought in Vietnam and focused his tour on healing old wounds.
Clinton was taken to a field near Hanoi where workers searched for a pilot shot down in 1967. Then he attended the ceremonial repatriation of the remains of several servicemen. He also met Vietnamese children maimed by some of the millions of land mines left over from decades of war.
Confronted with his own unpopular war in
Iraq, Bush has tried to avoided such imagery in Vietnam.
But wherever he goes, Bush is shadowed by the ubiquitous image of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, who for many years to Americans was the face of the enemy, and as he left the MIA center his motorcade passed by Ho's temple-like tomb.
In a city like Hanoi, the old North Vietnamese capital struck regularly by U.S. bombers, the reminders of what is known in Vietnam as the American War are hard to avoid.
By Matt Spetalnick - Reuters - November 18, 2006.
Bush praises Vietnam's rapid economic growth
HANOI - President Bush arrived in poor but economically vibrant Vietnam Friday on a mission to strengthen business ties that he hopes will help eclipse bitter memories of the unpopular and ultimately unsuccessful war the U.S. waged here more than three decades ago.
"History has a long march to it," Bush told reporters, when asked how he felt about being hosted by a former U.S. enemy. "Societies change, and relationships can constantly be altered to the good."
Bush is here to take part in the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, but arrives with a host of issues on the table -- from the recent North Korean nuclear test to the United States' mounting trade deficit with China and his own political setbacks at home. Earlier this week, Congress shelved a free trade agreement with Vietnam that Bush had hoped to have in hand for his trip here, and Democratic success in last week's Congressional elections highlighted voter concern about American jobs lost overseas.
Bush is the second U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the end of the war, following President Clinton's visit here near the conclusion of his second term in 2000.
Although the time of Clinton's arrival was not announced in local newspapers or on television, thousands of Vietnamese lined the streets to catch a glimpse of his motorcade and many others crowded into the square outside his hotel.
By comparison, interest in Bush's visit here appeared muted, if friendly. Residents stopped their motorbikes to watch as the president's motorcade drove by, while others gathered along the streets to wave and quietly take in the spectacle.
But Bush's route into Hanoi offered ample evidence of the Communist government's embrace of private enterprise. Billboards advertising the Hanoi Golf Club, farming equipment and Toyota and Chevrolet cars beckon along the main road from the airport, which also runs past huge Panasonic and Canon manufacturing plants.
In the years since the Communist victory in the war led to reunification of Vietnam, the impoverished country has become a significant economic player, with a growth rate of 8.4 percent, but a per capita income of just $638 a year.
"I have seen firsthand the great vibrancy and the excitement that's taking place in Vietnam," Bush said, to Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet. "You're like a young tiger, and I look forward to continuing to work to make sure our bilateral relations are close."
Bush held a luncheon meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard and met with Vietnamese and Communist Party leaders following his arrival here from Singapore this morning. Later, he is scheduled to take part in a state dinner, before holding several more meetings and taking part in APEC activities tomorrow.
Bush's visit to Vietnam prompted comparisons between the war in Iraq and the failed U.S. military adventure here, a contrast that Bush himself seemed to acknowledge last month. Then, he answered an interviewer's question by saying a surge in violence in Iraq "could be" comparable to the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, a succession of battles that helped turn the American public against the conflict and its political leadership.
Asked today whether any lessons from Vietnam apply to the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush took the opportunity to restate his resolve. "One lesson is, is that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while," he said.
Bush's press secretary, Tony Snow, said that rather than focus on the history of the war, the president is interested in Vietnam's seemingly bright economic future.
"This is not going to be a look back at Vietnam," Bush said. "It really is going to be a looking forward to areas of cooperation and shared concern."
Bush, who as a young man joined the Texas Air National Guard rather than serve in Vietnam, will spend part of his visit focusing on the lingering wounds from the war, including a visit to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which is working to determine the fate of servicemen still missing from the Vietnam War.
On his drive into Hanoi, Bush passed many sites of note here including the tomb of Ho Chi Minh, and Truc Bach Lake, where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was shot down in 1967 when he was a Navy pilot. McCain was held as a prisoner of war for more than 5 years.
"Laura and I were talking about -- we were talking about how amazing it is we're here in Vietnam," Bush said. "And one of the most poignant moments of the drive in was passing the lake where John McCain got pulled out of the lake. And he's a friend of ours; he suffered a lot as a result of his imprisonment, and yet, we passed the place where he was, literally, saved, in one way, by the people pulling him out."
By Michael A. Fletcher - The Washington Post - November 17, 2006.
Bush : Vietnam shows there is no 'instant success' in fight for freedom
HANOI — President Bush, on his first visit to a country where America lost a two-decade-long fight against communism, said Friday the lesson from the Vietnam War is that it will take time for freedom to trump hatred in Iraq.
Embracing a former enemy that remains communist but is allowing capitalism to surge, Bush opened a four-day stay here that was fueling an already raging debate over his policy in Iraq.
A baby boomer who came of age during the turbulent Vietnam era and spent the war stateside as a member of the Texas Air National Guard, the president called himself amazed by the sights of the onetime war capital. He said he found it hopeful that the United States and Vietnam have reconciled differences after a war that ended 31 years ago with the fall to the communists of the Washington-backed regime in Saigon.
"My first reaction is history has a long march and societies change and relationships can constantly be altered to the good," Bush said after seeing signs of both poverty and the commerce produced by Asia's fastest-growing economy.
His motorcade also took him past Truc Bach lake, where then-Lt. Cmdr. John McCain, now a Republican senator from Arizona, was captured after parachuting from his damaged warplane to spend more than five years as a prisoner of war.
The president said there was much to be learned from the divisive Vietnam War — the longest conflict in U.S. history — as his administration contemplates new strategies for the increasingly difficult Iraq war, now in its fourth year. Like Vietnam, the United States faces a determined insurgency in Iraq; both wars have demonstrated the limits of U.S. power and drained support for American presidents.
"It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful — and that is an ideology of freedom — to overcome an ideology of hate," Bush said after having lunch at his lakeside hotel with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of America's strongest allies in Iraq, Vietnam and other conflicts.
"We'll succeed," Bush added, "unless we quit."
In a day of meetings with Vietnamese leaders, the talk of Vietnam-Iraq parallels gave way to a focus on areas of cooperation. Those include continuing military-to-military links, work on AIDS and bird flu, trade, and cooperation on information about more than 1,300 U.S. military personnel still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.
Bush was visiting the U.S. military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command here on Saturday.
He met first with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet at the bright orange presidential palace and then with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung next door — both times sitting under large bronze busts of Ho Chi Minh, the victorious North's revolutionary communist leader. Later, he was dropping by the ruling Communist Party's headquarters to see the general secretary, and being feted at a state banquet.
The president's welcome here was much less enthusiastic than the rock-star treatment afforded President Clinton when he came in 2000. Happy crowds thronged Clinton, who normalized relations with Vietnam.
But Bush encountered a country where many with long memories deeply disapprove of the U.S. invasion of Iraq — even as they yearn for continued economic progress to stamp out still-rampant poverty.
Bush's motorcade sped through a capital past crowds that seemed more curious than devoted.
With all traffic halted, many Hanoi residents merely gaped from their motorbikes. Other clusters appeared to have been drawn out of storefronts by the rarity of many-vehicled convoy. But while a few waved and smiled, most looked on impassively.
Huynh Tuyet, 71, a North Vietnamese veteran who fought against the French and later had his hand blown off fighting the Americans, recalled his own lesson about that time of war.
"Even though the Americans were more powerful with all their massive weapons, the main factor in war is the people," he said. "The Vietnamese people were very determined. We would not give up. That's why we won."
Vietnamese officials eager for their country to take its turn in the global spotlight expressed disappointment that the president arrived without his expected gift — congressional approval of a new pact normalizing trade relations with Vietnam.
Surprising the White House, Congress failed to pass the bill this week as expected, leaving U.S. officials trying to explain to the Vietnamese that it would be sure to go through next month.
The legislation is needed for U.S. firms to take advantage of the low tariffs that Vietnam will enact when it becomes the World Trade Organization's newest member. But Democrats and Republicans alike balked, citing continuing bitterness over the Vietnam War, a large trade deficit and the country's human rights record.
The visit was a delicate balancing act for Bush on another front. He was trying to encourage Vietnam to make further steps toward political, economic and social reforms even as his presence conferred special status on communist leaders.
The president was to reinforce the importance of continued progress on that front with a visit to a Hanoi church on Sunday.
After staying in Hanoi for a massive summit of 21 Pacific Rim leaders, Bush was traveling on to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon and the country's economic heart, he was showcasing Vietnam's booming economy with a visit to its stock exchange and discussions with business leaders. He was also going to a medical institute that focuses on bird flu and AIDS research and taking in a cultural performance at a local museum.
Bush will also draw on his powers of personal diplomacy in meetings Saturday and Sunday with Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Hu Jintao, Japan's Shinzo Abe and South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun.
The Associated Press - November 17, 2006.
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