Sen. John McCain rebuked his Senate colleague and good friend Chuck Hagel on Sunday, saying that the Nebraska Republican was wrong to claim last week that Iraq was becoming another Vietnam.
"Chuck Hagel is one of my dearest and best friends and will always be that," McCain told CBS's "Face the Nation." "We just have an honest disagreement here."
McCain said that in contrast to Iraq, South Vietnam "never had a legitimate government in Saigon that the people believed in and trusted."
The Vietnam war also featured "superpower engagement in a huge way," McCain added. "We have a problem [in Iraq] with the Syrians, but nothing like what the Chinese and Russians were doing with the North Vietnamese," he said
Another difference, said McCain: "If we fail in Iraq, the results will be cataclysmic. You'll see factionalization and eventual Muslim extremism and terrorist breeding grounds that I believe will pose a direct threat to the security of the United States."
"The whole situation is just very, very different," the Arizona Republican argued.
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