McNamara speaks, finally, on Iraq

Robert McNamara, the man who as US Defense Secretary in the 1960s was the architect of the US escalation in Vietnam, has until now been reticent in criticizing George DUH-bya’s war on Iraq. This silence was all the more surprising because of the lengths the 87-year-old McNamara has gone to over the past decade to understand, excoriate, and apologize for the misdeeds he and his colleagues committed in Vietnam.
Now, he has spoken. Doug Saunders, a columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail, called McNamara recently at his office in Washington DC and asked him to apply the lessons he learned about Vietnam to the present situation in Iraq.
(I found this story thru a comment “Munguza” left on Yankeedoodle’s “Today in Iraq” blog). Here’s how Saunders described McNamara’s response to his question:

“We’re misusing our influence,” he said in a staccato voice that had lost none of its rapid-fire engagement. “It’s just wrong what we’re doing. It’s morally wrong, it’s politically wrong, it’s economically wrong.”


While he did not want to talk on the record about specific military decisions made [by] Mr. Rumsfeld, he said the United States is fighting a war that he believes is totally unnecessary and has managed to destroy important relationships with potential allies. “There have been times in the last year when I was just utterly disgusted by our position, the United States’ position vis-