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US Senator Hagel in Vietnam criticises "unwise decisions" in launching Iraq war Fri Oct 6, 9:59 AM ET



HANOI (AFP) - Prominent US Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has criticised "very unwise decisions" in going to war in Iraq, during a return visit to Vietnam where he served as a soldier in the late 1960s.

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"The horrors of the war remind me of the folly of war," the Nebraska senator said Friday during a visit to Vietnam, reflecting on his wartime service there as an infantry squad leader in 1968.

"War should always be a last resort," he told a Hanoi press briefing.

"Leaders of nations should never commit a country to war unless they have carefully thought through the consequences of that action."

Hagel said he had been one of the few US Congress members to ask "some very significant questions about going to war" in Iraq before it started, adding that "Iraq is a far more complicated situation and country than Vietnam."

"But we are where we are," he said. "We are not going to go back and unwind some very unwise decisions that were made.

"We have to deal with the realities that we now face. And that's what we are doing and that's what's going to be required to try to bring some semblance of stability and security not only in Iraq but in the Middle East."

US journalist Bob Woodward writes in his new book "State of Denial" that Hagel first cautioned US President George W. Bush in 2005 about getting "bubbled" by his inner circle of White House advisors on the Iraq war.

Hagel told the magazine US News and World Report in June that "the White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq