BAGHDAD -- A reunion of old hands from the Vietnam War is underway at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. It's almost become Saigon on the Tigris.
The new crowd running U.S. policy on post-occupation Iraq, in Baghdad and in Washington, all cut their teeth in Vietnam. The four top officials at the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad are military or diplomatic veterans of the Vietnam War: Ambassador John D. Negroponte; James F. Jeffrey, the embassy's second in command; Ronald E. Neumann, an Arabic speaker who gave up an ambassadorship in Bahrain to take charge of political-military affairs; and William B. Taylor Jr., head of the new Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office.
Negroponte's second posting was to Saigon, where he was political officer and resident expert on Vietnam's constituent assembly in the early 1960s. It was good preparation for Baghdad, because Iraq's first election in January will be for a national assembly. The performance of that body, which is to craft a new constitution, will be a pivotal test for Iraq's transition.
Jeffrey was an Army platoon leader with the group advising Vietnam's special forces in the early 1970s. After the Army, Jeffrey joined the Foreign Service and specialized in conflict management and prevention, especially in the Middle East and the Balkans.
"Over these past 33 years, in and out of uniform, I have tried . . . to ensure that diplomatic action and military options were fully balanced, coordinated and complementary," he said in 2002 Senate confirmation hearings to become ambassador to Albania.
Neumann was awarded a Bronze Star as a young infantry officer in the late 1960s.
Taylor was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who served with the 101st Airborne in Vietnam. The Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office that he now heads is responsible for distribution of $18.4 billion in U.S. aid.
At home, the State Department's top two officials, who assumed control of U.S. policy on Iraq from the Pentagon after the June 28 transfer of political power, had their first jobs in Vietnam. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell served two tours in Vietnam as a young lieutenant. His deputy, Richard L. Armitage, became a counterinsurgency specialist after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He served three combat tours in Vietnam.
In an interview with PBS's "Frontline," Powell reflected on the "Vietnam syndrome" in the U.S. military. "Does it affect our thinking? Sure, it was the most definitive military event in our lives and in our careers. But it is not a syndrome, as if it's some sort of mental disease we have. It's the right way to go about dealing with war: Have a clear objective, know what you're doing . . . know what you're trying to achieve," he said.
Some Vietnam veterans and analysts say the Vietnam experience of the post-Iraq occupation policy team is in marked contrast to the major Pentagon policymakers in charge during the war and yearlong occupation. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary for policy; and Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary for intelligence, have not served in a conflict environment. Rumsfeld served as a naval aviator in the 1950s.
The contrast has some policy insiders, Vietnam veterans and analysts abuzz over what difference it might make in Iraq.
"What the Vietnam experience brings is a realistic appreciation of the fact that war and the peacemaking process after a war are a messy, uncertain, chaotic process," said John F. Guilmartin Jr., an Ohio State University military historian who flew 120 combat missions in Vietnam, as well as a helicopter evacuation flight during the fall of Saigon.
"They go in with a certain caution -- it's instinctive -- and they'll be much more inclined to look at the worst-case scenario and plan around it," he added.
Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, West Point's distinguished professor of international security, who was awarded three Purple Hearts in Vietnam, said: "Part of the story is who didn't serve in Vietnam and wasn't affected by that great policy tragedy, namely Rumsfeld. He never saw the confusion, bloodshed and lack of a clear national objective involved in ground combat operations in a foreign country."
