U.S. Republican senator says Iraq war similar to Vietnam

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Influential Republican Sen. Chuck
Hagel of Nebraska said on Sunday the longer the United States
stayed bogged down in Iraq, the more it looked like another
Vietnam.

“What I think the White House does not yet understand and
some of my colleagues, is the dam has broken on this (Iraq)
policy,” said Hagel, a senior member of the Foreign Relations
Committee and possible presidential candidate in 2008.

Hagel’s comments in an interview with ABC’s “This Week,”
coincide with President George W. Bush’s new offensive to
counter growing public discontent over U.S. involvement in Iraq
and calls for a pull-out date.

Bush is taking his message on the road this week when he
will invoke the September 11, 2001, attacks to contend that the
United States must stay the course in Iraq, warning that an
early withdrawal would put the country’s security at risk and
destabilize the Middle East.

The public is showing more discontent with Bush’s handling
of Iraq, with high-profile protests during his Texas ranch
vacation and new poll results showing growing concern over the
outcome of the war.

Hagel, a Vietnam war veteran, said there were growing
similarities between Iraq and U.S. involvement in Vietnam and
he predicted the longer the United States stayed in Iraq the
more unpopular it would become.

“We are locked into a bogged down problem not unsimilar or
dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam. The longer we stay the
more problems we are going to have,” he said,

But Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia, speaking on
the same program, strongly disagreed with Hagel’s assessment
and said there were huge differences between Iraq and Vietnam.

Allen backed the president’s view that Iraq was a focal
point in America’s war on terrorism, which began after the 2001
attacks on New York and Washington.

“It is absolutely essential that we win it. We cannot tuck
tail and run (from Iraq). We have to prevail. We must win. If
we lose, that will destabilize the Middle East,” said Allen.

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Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin broke ranks with
many of his colleagues this week and called for a December 2006
deadline to withdraw from Iraq, arguing this would take the
wind out of the sails of the insurgency.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Feingold said
if a target date was not set the American public would become
more and more disillusioned.

“The president is not telling us the time frame … what’s
happening is that the American public is despairing of the
situation,” said Feingold. “I felt it was time to put on the
table an idea and break the taboo,” he added.

But fellow Democrat Bill Richardson, the governor of New
Mexico, disagreed and said a fixed timetable was not needed.

“The senator (Feingold) is understandably frustrated, like
all America is. What we need in Iraq is either a strategy to
win or a strategy to get out,” he told ABC.

Feingold and Allen are also on the Foreign Relations
Committee.

Hagel also did not back Feingold’s approach but he said
there needed to be a clearer strategy from the White House.

“I don’t know how many more casualties we’re going to take.
We’re spending a billion dollars a week now (in Iraq),” said
Hagel.

More than 1,800 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq and
thousands more have been wounded.

“We should start figuring out how we get out of there. But
with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further
destabilizes the Middle East,” said Hagel.