Rumsfeld discusses MIAs in Vietnam

Published Monday, June 5, 2006

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Vietnamese military leaders, in a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said today they would try to do more to help the United States recover the remains of Americans missing in action in the Vietnam War.

The United States is asking for greater access to Vietnamese archives as well as information about MIAs lost in Laos and Cambodia, said a senior defense official in the meetings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.

The official said Rumsfeld raised the issue and said that MIA recovery is a national priority of the United States and "he said that we appreciated what they have done, but we have some things we’d like them to do more of."

Currently there are 1,805 U.S. troops unaccounted for from the war, including 1,376 in Vietnam, said Marine Maj. Jay Rutter, deputy commander of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which heads the recovery efforts here.

During the early moments of Rumsfeld’s meeting with the military leaders, the U.S. secretary said Hanoi has changed a lot since he was last here in 1995 as a private citizen. "I hasten to congratulate you and the people of Vietnam for the amazing economic achievements in the last 11 years," Rumsfeld told Vietnamese Defense Minister Gen. Pham Van Tra. Rumsfeld said he took a walk around Hanoi and could "feel the energy, the vibrancy of the city ... There’s a significant change in just that short period of time."

Yesterday, Rumsfeld said the United States wants to expand its military relationship with Vietnam but has no plans to seek access to military facilities.

Rumsfeld talked only generally about his goals for the U.S. military relationship with a country that has come to symbolize one of the military’s most divisive and politically explosive wars.

"I don’t have a wish list, and I don’t have a set of things we’re trying to achieve," he said en route to Hanoi. "What we want to see is a relationship between our country and Vietnam evolve in a way that is comfortable to them and comfortable to us. And it has been doing that over recent years, and I suspect it will continue on that path."