IRAQ

PINR: "U.S. Occupation of Iraq Entering Critical Phase"

In many respects, the current political conditions in Iraq are very similar to that of Vietnam forty years ago. In Vietnam, one of the major goals of the various U.S. administrations, from Truman's to Ford's, was to create a viable government in South Vietnam that had the support of the Vietnamese people but would also be a proponent of U.S. interests in Southeast Asia. In order to achieve this goal, Washington supported a handful of South Vietnamese leaders, from Bao Dai to Nguyen Van Thieu. Yet all of these leaders were corrupt and did not represent the interests of the Vietnamese people. In Iraq, the Bush administration is facing similar political concerns that successive U.S. administrations faced in Vietnam, while at the same time suffering from what many Americans feel is an unacceptable casualty rate that was only seen in the later years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.