Posted on 06/28/2005 5:10:29 PM PDT by CDB
Robert McNamara says he did not realise during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 just how close the US and the Soviet Union came to nuclear war. Forty-three years later, the controversial former US defence secretary is more concerned than ever about the dangers of nuclear weapons.
Sitting in his Washington office, the subject of The Fog of War - the Oscar-winning documentary about his views on the Vietnam war - cautions, in a rare interview, that he does not want to talk about Iraq.
The 89-year-old Mr McNamara - who served under Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson - does not hold back, however, in criticising the Bush administration over its diplomacy to wean North Korea and Iran off their nuclear programmes. He also has harsh words for US and Nato nuclear policy, which he describes as "immoral".
"If North Korea retains a [nuclear] weapon, it is highly probable that Japan would go nuclear," says Mr McNamara, adding that South Korea and Taiwan might also follow suit.
He voices similar concerns about Iran, warning that if Tehran developed nuclear weapons, it would raise the prospect of Saudi Arabia and Syria going the same route.
"It would be very dangerous for the world to see that happen," he says.
Earlier this year, North Korea declared that it already had anuclear weapon. Meanwhile, Iran claims its nuclear programme exists solely to develop energy - a stance the US doubts.
For Mr McNamara the bottom line is simple: lacking viable military options, the only weapon the US has to engage North Korea and Iran is diplomacy.
"[President George W.] Bush says no option is off the table, but in my mind the military option is off the table," he says.
An attack on North Korea, he believes, would result in a devastating retaliatory attack on South Korea. He says invading Iran is inconceivable for different reasons.
"We don't even have enough soldiers in Iraq," he says. "Where would we get troops for Iran?"
Mr McNamara says the administration needs to empathise with North Korea and Iran by putting itself in the shoes of both regimes, which Mr Bush put alongside Iraq as members of the "axis of evil".
"If you were North Korea or Iran, you would worry about [enforced] regime change," he says.
He says the US should provide Kim Jong-il, North Korean leader, with more than just a guarantee of non-aggression by declaring it is not pursuing regime change.
"I don't see any reason that the US shouldn't make clear that regime change [in North Korea] is not our objective," says Mr McNamara. "That's the way we settled the Cuban missile crisis," he adds, referring to the US guarantee that it would not attack Cuba. Mr McNamara says that while Pyongyang is very difficult to negotiate with, the US has to "understand what motivates them". "We have to address their fundamental concerns, which are associated with regime change."
According to Mr McNamara, Iran poses a more complicated problem. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is entitled to enrich uranium to levels required for power generation. But many countries, including the US, are concerned that if Iran can complete the fuel cycle for nuclear energy, the country - which last week elected as its president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, regarded by Washington as a hardline conservative - would be only a step away from the ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
Britain, France and Germany have been negotiating with Iran since last year on eliminating its nuclear programme. While the US has come around to supporting the Europeans' efforts, it has refused to engage in direct talks with Iran. Mr McNamara argues that this has to change.
The former defence secretary sees two solutions: either the US guarantees Iran a supply of nuclear fuel, or it permits Iran to develop fuel by allowing it to enrich uranium to the level required for power generation. He says International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors should be enlisted to make sure it does not enrich uranium to levels necessary to build a nuclear bomb.
Mr McNamara says the US needs to change tack with its diplomacy. In his 1995 autobiography In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, he wrote that US generals opposed pauses in bombing North Vietnam - which some officials believed would provide an opportunity to open negotiations with the regime - because it would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Today, he says the administration has the same problem: it is "scared" to negotiate with countries such as North Korea and Iran for fear of being seen as weak.
Finally, Mr McNamara has harsh words for US policy on nuclear weapons. He says the US has 6,000 strategic nuclear weapons, each of which is 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima. He adds that about 2,000 current US weapons are on a 15-minute hair-trigger alert - a policy that he says has not changed since he was defence secretary 40 years ago.
"Insane," he says. "It makes no sense whatsoever."
McNamara...isn't he the one that won the Vietnam War for us?
McNamara is no stranger to failure. He really needs to get his talking points straight though. Is the correct course of action to negotiate (North Korea) or to disarm (Iraq)?
LOL
Name: Robert S. McNamara
Birth Date: June 9, 1916
This man is 89 years old. He is in his frigging dotage, and is most likely addled. Nothing he says could possibly be newsworthy, unless he says things that please the MSM. Then they will report what he says, and just not happen to give his age.
All this good advice from the guy who fancied himself more astute that the generals fighting the battles in Nam.
This guy is very lucky he wasn't Soviet. He would have just "disappeared".
I am tired of hearing from the McNamara's and Carter's and Kennedy's of the world. While even a broken clock is right twice a day, McNamara, Carter and Kennedy don't have the batting average of the broken clock. Why anyone cares about their opinions is beyond me.
Robert Strange McNamara gave us the Ford Falcon. If there was a stupider can every made ??
He is in his frigging dotage when he as at his prime. He was a bean counter that helped give ford the Edsel. Nothing was done right on his watch as SecDef. Rumsfeld makes him look like a turkey.
McNamara didnt realize how close we were to war during the Cuban missile crisis?
Well I sure did,I was scared to death and remember the day it was over as if it was yesterday.
He was brought in to "transform" the military with a "Management Reformist" tinge, i.e. MBA bs thinking.
He knew little if anything about the military and while he was a bookworm, he was more concerned about concepts like "developmental concepts" and "systems analysis".
When a real war happened, he had no clue.
The equivalent of putting McNamara as Sec of Def would be if George W. Bush named Larry Kudlow S.O.D.
LOL. Tell it to Johnson - the rest of us don't want to hear from you.
He was one of Ford's "Whiz Kids"
And McNamara still forgets to change his hair grease after 3000 miles.
Add Brezinski and Kissinger to that list--washed-up has-beens all. Even Kennedy, who thought "he coulda been a contendah", but had to settle for the consolation prize of permanent residence as a Senator.
MSM cares.
"We slam Bush anytime, anywhere - 24/7!"
The best one has to be Jimmah, IMO.
A complete and utter failure as President.......but he now feels qualifed to "judge" another President.
We should have made him sign a "STFU and just go away" clause when he left the White House.
LVM
I guess he finally figured out the Domino Theory. Too bad he's still as clueless as ever about how to prevail. Diplomacy?
What a moron. That's what got us into this mess. McNamara should share his strategies with Jimmy Carter at the Old Age Nursing Home for Meddling Incompetents. (Incontinent imcompenents?)
How the h*ll could he not realize? Everyone else did. I, too remember it very clearly. The nuns had us saying rosaries all day long. We weren't sure if we'd ever get home to see our families one last time before the missiles fired.
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