Air Force Chief Fired for Remarks on Iraq Strikes

Gen. Dugan was fired for candor, for saying in public what is evidently said at the White House and Pentagon in private. I find this approach to Dugan stupefying because his nonsensical ideas were his real problem, not his candor. Crudely put, he argued that the U.S. military lost the Vietnam War because it was constrained in its use of air power. If these constraints were lifted in a war against Iraq, the U.S. military could this time obtain a quick and decisive victory.

Now that Gen. Dugan has time on his hands, I suggest he re-learn the history of the Vietnam War. His military colleagues, as well as those in the White House, Congress and the press could also benefit from the same lessons.

In order to “bomb them back to the Stone Age,” the U.S. government relied heavily and ineffectively on massive aerial bombing of Vietnam and Cambodia. Facing outmoded air defenses, it engaged in carpet bombing of North Vietnam and totally destroyed rural agriculture in Cambodia. Furthermore, air power was also used for napalm, Agent Orange and cluster bombs.

The strategy not only failed, it backfired. More than 3,000 planes were shot down and more than 500 surviving crew members captured. Nevertheless, the resolve of the Vietnamese was hardened and the chaos we created in Cambodia brought the Khmer Rouge to power.

Dugan is now gone, but Washington’s other born-again hawks ought to mull over this history before they so eagerly march more young men and women off to war.

DICK PLATKIN

Los Angeles