Iraq could be worse than Vietnam: EU's Patten
17 April 2004
Top EU official Chris Patten said Saturday it was wrong to compare the war in Iraq with the United States' fate in Vietnam -- as the consequences of failure in Iraq would be far more serious.
The European Union's external relations commissioner said that with "the substantial benefit of hindsight, Vietnam would have been caught up in the opening of markets, the end of communism and globalisation".
"In the case of Iraq, I think if things go wrong we'll be living with the consequences for a very, very long time," he told reporters after a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
EU sources said that during the two-day meeting more than one minister, including Germany's Joschka Fischer, made the comparison with the United States' doomed attempt to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.
"If things go wrong in Iraq, it'll make it much more difficult for us to deal with tensions in the Islamic world and the world outside," Patten said.
"So I think the comparison which is customarily drawn, which suggests that somehow Iraq could become as difficult an issue as Vietnam, is misplaced, because I think it's arguably much more serious."
President George W. Bush this week rejected emotive comparisons with Vietnam made by Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy.
"Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam," Kennedy had said, "and this country needs a new president".
Kennedy is an outspoken campaigner for John Kerry, the Democratic candidate in the November 2 presidential election.
EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana, for his part, rejected the Vietnam comparison.
"The historical situation in Vietnam and today's situation in Iraq are completely different," he said. "To me it is abundantly clear that the situation in the 60s is quite different from today's situation."
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