The analogy of Iraq being another Vietnam has been uttered for years now.
, something from which it will take decades to recover. But with the entrance of Henry Kissinger the obvious hits you in the face.
We.
Didn't.
Know... the half of it.
is up.
. America does, too.
... The president met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.
Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw the situation through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to stick it out.
In his writing, speeches and private comments, Kissinger claimed that the United States had essentially won the war in 1972, only to lose it because of the weakened resolve of the public and Congress.
In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled "Lessons for an Exit Strategy," Kissinger wrote, "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."
He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House.
Snip...
"The president can't be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece," Kissinger said. "You may want to reduce troops," but troop reduction should not be the objective. "This is not where you put the emphasis."
To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.
"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded," he wrote.
Snip..
Echoes of Vietnam ... ... ...
STATE OF DENIALBehind Public Optimism on Iraq, Administration Had Doubts