Collins: Vietnamese broke promise to share POW/MIA records

<p>Rep. Mac Collins says he feels "betrayed" by Vietnamese officials who promised to let him browse through what he believes is a vast vault of records about American prisoners of war but never followed through.</p><p>As Collins prepares to leave Congress next month, it's a lingering frustration that the country appears to be no closer to revealing more about the nearly 2,000 American soldiers missing since the Vietnam War.</p><p>At one point a few months ago, it appeared he was on the cusp of getting some answers, but Collins said the promises proved to be empty ones.</p><p>"That's just Vietnam," said Collins, who was defeated in the Republican Senate primary against fellow Rep. Johnny Isakson, who won the election. "We pushed the issue hard."</p><p>During Collins' visit to Vietnam more than a year ago, the country's foreign minister, Nguyen Duc Hung, invited him to return to Hanoi and personally browse the records of prisoners to prove the country wasn't hiding anything.</p><p>Collins took him up on the offer earlier this year, bringing a document expert along on a follow-up visit to the country. But when they got there, he said, the Vietnamese officials told him that part of the deal was off.</p><p>"They were nervous with him going along," Collins said. "They felt like they could fool me, but they couldn't fool him. I did feel betrayed that they promised us things and didn't follow through."</p><p>They have also been generally unresponsive to most of the additional requests he has made since, including a face-to-face meeting with top Vietnamese officials over the summer in Washington.</p><p>Talks have been more promising, Collins said, about the possibility of allowing American military ships search for downed American aircraft off the coast of Vietnam.</p><p>Ann Mills Griffiths, executive director for the National League of POW/MIA Families, said she will miss Collins, who was one of the most active members of Congress is trying to get the Vietnamese government to open up its records.</p><p>However, she said he shouldn't feel disappointed that he wasn't able to do more. She said she would have been surprised if the country did keep its promises.</p><p>"Their record is to make promises, make commitments, get praise, pocket the praise, then go back on their commitment," said Griffiths, whose brother is among the missing. "I could paper my walls with commitments from the Vietnamese."</p><p>Collins said the United States has essentially given away its best leverage on the Vietnam records _ establishing normal trade relations with the country, which has already largely been done.</p><p>Unless Congress and the Bush administration take a harder line on the topic, Collins says Vietnam will continue to release information on a piecemeal basis, motivated only by economics.</p><p>"We need to put our foot down that we want this information, and they do have it," he said. "They have these remains stored, and they dribble them out when someone raises an issue about it."</p><p>Although Collins said he doubts he'll have much leverage to pursue the issue when he leaves Congress, he doesn't intend to disappear permanently from the political scene.</p><p>He said he could try to return to Congress in two years if Republicans in the Georgia Legislature redraw the state's congressional map. In the meantime, he said he'd like to stay involved in government _ possibly even pursuing a job in the administration, such as undersecretary of Transportation or Homeland Security.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x2864c64)</p><p>HASH(0x2864d0c)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/12/155816