McNamara breaks silence on Iraq: "It's just wrong what we're doing"

[G_j]

www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0125-01.htm

Published on Sunday, January 25, 2004 by the Globe & Mail (Canada)
'It's Just Wrong What We're Doing'

In an exclusive interview, repentant Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara breaks his silence on Iraq: The United States, he says, is making the same mistakes all over again

by Doug Saunders

 'Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."

With those words, written nine years ago, Robert McNamara began an extraordinary final phase of his career -- devoted to chronicling the errors, delusions and false assumptions that turned him into the chief architect and most prominent promoter of the Vietnam war.

No historic figure has put so much effort into self-examination: At the age of 87, he has now written three very detailed and analytical books, and starred in one very good movie, devoted to the fundamental mistakes that led the United States into the most politically costly and least successful war in its history.
What, then, does he think about Iraq?

Until now, the former secretary of defense has avoided comment on the actions of that job's current occupant, Donald Rumsfeld. The two are often compared to each other in their autocratic leadership styles and in their technocratic, numbers-driven approaches to war. And their wars, of course, are often likened. But Robert McNamara has insisted in staying out of the fray.

He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself.

...more...

[ma4t]

1. If McNamara is against it, that almost convinces me to support it

Sorry, but McNamara has less than zero credibility with me on any foreign policy or defense issues. I don't think we've ever had a less competent Secretary of Defense than him. His tenure at the Defense Department was a string of one monumental bad decision after another. His was the classic case of bottom-line management skills in a position that called for leadership. Make no mistake, management and leadership are two distict traits. McNamara was a superb manager at Ford and a good manager in government service. The problem was he was pitiful as a leader at a time when leadership was sorely needed. In all of his subsequent introspection he yet to understand that basic truth.

[Iverson]

2. Melvin Laird was worse.

Laird had the idea to bomb the dikes during monsoon season. That is making war against a civilian population without even the window dressing that most other Secretaries of State use to give themselves plausible deniability (what a loathsome term, by the way).

Kissinger has a long list of accomplishments that could also knock McNamara out of the top box for worst. Dirty war, anyone?

[ma4t]

18. have do disagree

I don't necessarily disagree with you tha Laird may have been worse in the management of the Vietnam War; however, when you look beyond that to all the other aspects of running the Defense Dept. MacNamara takes the cake for outright bungling. Take a look at the TFX fighter project for one. Only someone monumentally stupid could overlook the fact that the landing stresses experienced when landing on an aircraft carrier are much greater than landing on an 8000-foot runway. For another example look at the 'bottom-line', 'by the numbers' management style he imposed which led to the analysis of number of enemy killed per hundred rounds of ammunition. This was the root of the whole focus on body-counts.

I repeat, I don't think there has ever been a less competent Secretary of Defense than MacNamara.

[G_j]

3. I have to agree

his record is utterly shameful.
That's not to say he didn't learn something in the long run. But his 'leadership' was responsible for millions of deaths.

I was interested however about his take on the present "war". He is a man who knows US war from the inside.

[trumad]

5. Looks like Rummy is moving up with a bullet

In a couple of generations it will be Rummy who will wear the worse Sec of Defense tag.

[0007]

12. Without a doubt!

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. The man made the kind of mistake for which there will never be

self-redemption and now he's devoted the remainder of his life to ensure that it doesn't happen again in order to avoid another 50,000 plus American boys' death .... and you're going to ignore him out of spite?

Brilliant. :eyes:

[9215]

22. I agree

I still don't know about McNamara entirely. It could be that, to some extent, he was duped on Vietnam. It was a very weird time in US history where the CIA and intel community in general had the upper hand. It wouldn't be surprising to find out that Johnson was duped by false info on the Gulf of Tonkin. The Pentagon Papers showed that the military was capable of lying to the President thereby setting the precedent.

This whole era needs a thorough going over from a historical perspective. The US has been living a big lie for a long time.

[The Backlash Cometh]

24. MacNamara wasn't duped.

It took him decades to admit it, but more than ten years ago he admitted that he stayed the course in Vietnam because he didn't want to appear weak by giving in to the war protesters. Can you believe that there are opinion pieces out there that blame the peace movement for extending the war BECAUSE autocratic leaders (like MacNamara) would never bow down to them?

But that is how it is. A strange cognitive dissonance.

[Karenina]

23. NOT.

Better late than never.

[Karenina]

4. This is a "Must Read."

Check it out:

"The United States is today the strongest power in the world, politically, economically and militarily, and I think it will continue to be so for decades ahead, if not for the whole century," he told me. "But I do not believe, with one qualification, that it should ever, ever use that power unilaterally -- the one qualification being the unlikely event we had to use it to defend the continental U.S., Alaska or Hawaii."

I doubt the power will be sustained, given the hatchet job *corp has done. It is my fond wish that the U.N. flatly refuse to work with the U.S. until there is a "regime change." America's corporate interests are spreading death, destruction and economic ruin GLOBALLY. It's a fact that has not passed unnoticed by the ROTW. What was that *dipshit said,'We will export death and destruction to the four corners of the globe in defense of our great nation.' That was one of the rare occasions on which the truth emerged from his slimy maul.

McNamara is a MUST. So is Smedley Butler. So is Dwight's 1961 Farewell address.

Oh America, PLEASE WAKE UP!!! What a bloody fuckin' mess is being made in your name...

[charlie]

6. Well, I guess

a year and a half too late is an improvement over 25 years too late. I'm glad that a prickling conscience has awakened a glimmering of humanity in you Bob, but your timing sucks.

[KG]

8. funny how he found a conscience after a million deaths...

you'll still burn in hell, mac.

[Solomon]

9. You know what. DU is as unforgiving as repukes.

I've seen this phenomenon over and over again. Don't listen to the message because you can't stand the messenger. It's juvenile and embarassing. It happens over and over again. Somebody decides to be democrat and instead of being happy about it, we jump up and down about why we shouldn't accept him because he used to be ...
When are we going to grow up?

[KG]

10. i'm only commenting on the man myself.

i've seen DUers forgive sen. byrd his early flirtations w/ the KKK.

but macnamara is a fucking war criminal. he'd have to do a whole lot more than write some books to redeem himself.

[Solomon]

14. It's not a question of forgiving or redeeming himself.

He's got something to say and we should listen to him. And by the way, I did lose relatives to the Vietnam war. All I'm saying is don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[trumad]

11. Lose a relative or friend because of lies

and it becomes real hard to forgive. I guess you want us to forgive OJ next?

[Solomon]

15. I respect you Trumad but there's no call

for the OJ remark. It's way out of left field. Has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the debate.

[trumad]

21. It wasn't meant towards you although it appeared that way

and I'm sorry... But... It's not easy to forgive a murderer and I believe that Mcnamara is a lying murderer...

[rman]

17. nobody is asking to forgive the man

taking seriously what he has to say is not the same thing as forgiving him or liking him. and his likebility has nothing to do with his credibility. i mean, where the logic in "i don't believe you because i don't like you"?

[rman]

16. that's a minority on DU, i'd say

-

[0007]

13. I think I've read some place where McNamara came clean

and seen the problems he created with his lies and all the deaths he was responsible for in those awful days. I find it as hard to forgive McNamara as Chile's Pinochet.

A well quoted man of long ago said that all men were redeemable and should be forgiven. I wish I could rise to that level. I'm trying!

I believe McNamara is correct about this administration and the Iraq war.

[G_j]

20. personally

I would be lost and my value system would be in trouble if I didn't think even the 'worst' human being was capable of some kind of redemption, of understanding they had committed crimes against their fellow beings and of feeling genuine remorse.

It's really between that person and their "God" and/or conscience to know if their'awakening' is sincere. Some may believe their remorse is genuine, some may not. Still, people who commit crimes against humanity must be held accountable. I may still find some compassion and forgiveness for them somewhere within my heart though that does not excuse their past actions. That of course is a separate issue.

I really wish he had come out in solidarity with Nam vets who voiced their concerns BEFORE the Iraq invasion.
That could have possibly saved many lives, though it doesn't seem there was really anything that could have kept Bush fom his beloved war.

[BiggJawn]

19. To disagree with McNamara is to agree with Cheney and Rumsferatu.

You bible scholars out there are no doubt aware of that passage that refers to a "perfect message in an imperfect vessel"?

So it is with McNamara. The grand architect of 58,000 American and untold Viet deaths, and when he says "We're fucking up again-just like *I* did in Vietnam." We maybe should give a listen?