Swords into ploughshares
ploughshares into thin air:
Four decades after first visiting as a young congressman at the height of a divisive war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld toured Vietnam on Monday amid increasingly warming relations between the onetime enemies and made unexpected progress toward improving military relations.
U.S. officials were cautious to lower expectations ahead of Rumsfeld's visit here, particularly given Vietnam's occasionally tense relations with its northern neighbor China. But after meetings with Defense Ministry officials and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, Pentagon officials emerged upbeat, saying Hanoi appeared eager to deepen defense cooperation, despite the possibility of antagonizing Beijing.
"Both sides agreed we wanted to expand things," said one Pentagon official involved in the talks.
Rumsfeld also said Monday that the U.S. is pressing Vietnam for underwater searches and access to aging witnesses in stepped-up efforts to recover remains of Americans missing from the Vietnam War.
xxxxChicago Tribune 06.Jun.06
-
The United States won't compensate Vietnam's Agent Orange victims but will offer advice on dealing with the wartime defoliant, a US official said during a visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
When Rumsfeld met Defence Minister Pham Van Tra and military officials, the Vietnamese side had raised the issue of dioxin exposure and contamination from Agent Orange, the senior official said on the sidelines of the visit.
"What we can do is make scientific information available, historical archival information we might have, ... technical advice on how to deal with the situation," the official said.
xxxxAFP/CommonDreams 05.Jun.06
