At the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City, Missouri State, on August 22, President George W. Bush compared the Iraq war to the Vietnam war, saying the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq would lead to similar consequences. Politicians, historians and Vietnam War veterans in the US and other countries have not agreed with President Bush’s views which they described as incorrect assessments of history.

In his speech, Mr Bush said the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq would be a mistake as compared to what happened in Vietnam more than three decades ago. He said the price of US withdrawal from Vietnam was paid by millions of innocent people, leading to such tragedies as “killing fields” under the Pol Pot genocidal regime in Cambodia, and “boat people” and “re-education camps” in Vietnam. He even said that the withdrawal would tarnish the US image and enable terrorist forces to stimulate anti-US activity around the globe.

Not long before President Bush delivered his speech, several scholars and strategists had warned the White House of the far-reaching consequences if it delayed the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq. By way of comparison, Mr Bush drew a false picture of the Vietnam war. There is no logic in saying that the US withdrawal from Vietnam led to tragic consequences. Moreover, this was a rather long process, which began in 1969 and lasted until a few years later. 

In a recent interview with Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People’s Army) newspaper, Lieutenant General and Associate Professor Nguyen Dinh Uoc, former director of the Military History Institute affirmed that the troop withdrawal resulted from the US defeat in the Vietnam War. It was a must, not a mistake of history. It was Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge that caused the “killing fields” tragedy in Cambodia. In addition, the deployment of US troops in Cambodia caused instability in this country, leading to the setting up of the Pol Pot genocidal regime. Former Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk stressed on September 4 that if the US had not supported the Khmer Rouge, this force would not have established their power and brought awful tragedies to the country. 

It is also a fact that the US war in Vietnam left serious consequences for Vietnamese people to suffer in a long time. After the war ended, the US imposed economic sanctions on Vietnam and incited Vietnamese people to flee the country in an attempt to sabotage the country in the post-war period. Consequently, a large number of people, including those who had led hard lives, sought to get out of the country illegally and many boat people lost their lives on the way to the Promised Land.

It is worth mentioning that during the war against Vietnam, the US used lethal weapons, even toxic chemicals, to destroy the environment and cause great suffering to the Vietnamese people. To allay the public outrage over its defeat in Vietnam, the US had to withdraw its troops from Vietnam. How is it possible to compare this to what is happening in the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. By trampling upon the sovereignty and the right to self-determination of these two countries, the US is facing the constant threats of terrorist attacks by extremists.

More than 30 years have gone by since the end of the war in Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are all resolved to break with the past and look to the future to build a new friendly relationship with the US. However, against this background President Bush could not come out with a fair judgement of the reality. As the US is getting bogged down in Iraq, the Bush administration should take correct views about the nature of the Iraq war and work out proper policies to deal with the current situation in Iraq. Otherwise, it would be difficult for President Bush to persuade Congress and the public to accept the presence of US troops in Iraq. By adopting incorrect views about the history of the Vietnam War and failing to draw any lesson from the losses it is suffering in Iraq, the US administration will only find itself in a deadlocked situation and present a negative picture of its external policy.