News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: U.S. Wants Closer Ties With Vietnam

Date: February 15, 2002

"U.S. Wants Closer Ties With Vietnam
By DAVID THURBER, Associated Press Writer

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - The United States is interested in closer military ties with former enemy Vietnam, including visits by U.S. Navy ships, the commander of American forces in the Pacific said Saturday.

Admiral Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said military ties between the countries still focus on their past war, including attempts to account for personnel listed as missing in action.

"I think it's time to transition and look more toward the future," he said.

Blair, the first recent Pacific commander in chief who did not fight in Vietnam, met in Hanoi with Vietnamese Defense Minister Pham Van Tra and other military officials.

He originally had been scheduled to visit Vietnam a year ago, but that trip was canceled by Hanoi, which said its military leadership was too busy to see him. The last-minute decision was thought to reflect divisions within the ruling Communist Party at the time over improved U.S. military ties.

Blair described this week's visit, his first, as productive.

"I think we're moving in a positive direction in military relations," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said Blair's visit was "an important step in accelerating the multifaceted cooperation between Vietnam and the U.S.," the official Vietnam News Agency reported.

Overall ties between the nations, although strained by periodic disagreements over human rights, have warmed since the approval in December of an agreement establishing normal trade ties. Washington agreed to lower its high tariffs on Vietnamese products, while Hanoi pledged to allow foreign companies to compete on more equal terms with its state-owned enterprises.

Blair said closer cooperation is possible in fighting terrorism, narcotics, international crime, piracy, and in humanitarian assistance and international peacekeeping. He said he expressed a U.S. interest in possible visits by American naval ships to Cam Ranh Bay, a former American base that Russia has leased since the Vietnam War but will relinquish this year.

He urged Vietnam's military to broaden its focus from border issues and economic development, and become involved in regional military exercises. Vietnam is likely to observe Cobra Gold, an exercise in Thailand in May that will include anti-terrorism drills, he said.

Blair said the United States has no plans to wind down attempts to account for about 2,000 Americans still listed as missing in action in Indochina, including about 1,470 in Vietnam.

"The commitment to pursue all possible leads remains the same," he said. Time is running out because memories by witnesses are fading more than 25 years after the war, he said.

The MIA program was temporarily suspended last year after the crash April 7 of a helicopter carrying a search team. All seven Americans and nine Vietnamese on board were killed.

The crash was attributed to pilot error compounded by deteriorating weather conditions.

Blair also met for about 45 minutes with retired Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the mastermind of Vietnam's guerrilla war against the United States.

"He played a strong and decisive role in this region. So it was a great interest of mine to talk with him," Blair said. He did not say what they discussed.

Giap, 90, the most prominent Vietnamese figure still living from the war era, stepped down as defense minister in 1978, but still serves as a respected adviser to the Communist Party and government.

Giap has previously met several other American military leaders, who asked him the secrets of his guerrilla warfare. He said he told Robert McNamara, the U.S. defense secretary for much of the war, "You saw only our backward weapons. You left out the most important factor, the strength of the Vietnamese people."

More than 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese perished in the conflict, which ended in 1975.

Blair, who earlier visited Singapore and Malaysia, travels next to Japan and South Korea on a tour to rally regional support for America's war on terrorism."