I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.

The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.

This looks like a real war zone to me. Thirty years ago, I was in Vietnam, and I haven't seen such devastation since then,

Vietnam was as much a laboratory experiment as a war