Sunday, January 25, 2004
McNamara Calls Iraq War 'Morally Wrong'
Here's a link to the trailer for Errol Morris's new film Fog of War. It's a portrait of Robert McNamara in the idiosyncratic style of Morris's two previous movies Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control and Mr. Death in which MacNamara discusses his involvement in the firebombing of Japan, the Vietnam war, and generally the doubts that he has about the role he played in the 20th century. It's got a Philip Glass soundtrack etc. -- I really can't wait, but from looking at the showing dates on the official site it seems like its getting a somewhat limited release, unfortunately.
Anyway, the Globe & Mail just ran an exclusive interview with McNamara:
He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself.
"We're misusing our influence," he said in a staccato voice that had lost none of its rapid-fire engagement. "It's just wrong what we're doing. It's morally wrong, it's politically wrong, it's economically wrong."
While he did not want to talk on the record about specific military decisions made Mr. Rumsfeld, he said the United States is fighting a war that he believes is totally unnecessary and has managed to destroy important relationships with potential allies. "There have been times in the last year when I was just utterly disgusted by our position, the United States' position vis-à-vis the other nations of the world."
