John Warner Remembers

Just to be perfectly clear, this non-binding resolution business is inadequate for us. We would really prefer to see a resolution with articles of impeachment for both Junior and his honcho, Richard Bruce. The Rag

Vietnam memories force Warner to raise voice on Iraq
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Virginia Sen. John Warner's words betray the guilt he still carries about the Vietnam War and help explain why this pillar of the Republican establishment is leading a bipartisan revolt against the war plans of a president in his own party.

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, the former Navy secretary said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office. "The Army generals would come in, 'Just send in another five or ten thousand.' You know, month after month. Another ten or fifteen thousand. They thought they could win it. We kept surging in those years. It didn't work."

Is that a lesson for what's going on in Iraq?

"Well, you don't forget something like that," he answers. There is a long pause, he closes his eyes and his voice gets softer. "No. You don't forget those things."

More than 30 years after Vietnam, Warner is once again watching as generals propose additional troops. But this time, he's not staying silent. In a rebuke to President Bush, Warner is leading an effort to have the U.S. Senate declare a lack of confidence in the administration's plans to send 21,500 additional soldiers into the Iraqi war zone.

White House officials were taken aback by the move, which is striking because of Warner's stature, both in the Republican Party and as one of the country's most ardent supporters of the military. But Warner, who once was married to Elizabeth Taylor, has an almost mythic popularity, which has made it impossible for Bush allies to demonize him on the issue.

Read the rest here.