Rice compares Vietnam, Iraq economies

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - After vigorously rejecting comparisons between the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the Bush administration found a parallel it liked on Saturday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told business executives that Iraq could be the kind of success story that postwar and communist Vietnam has become if its leaders make the same kind of strategic choices.

Vietnam is Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economy and a regional trade center 30 years after the U.S. military defeat here, a success that once might have seemed far-fetched, Rice said.

"Thirty years ago, what American would have thought that we would be standing in Vietnam ... talking about free markets and open trade," Rice asked.

"I don't mean to diminish the difficulties that we have in Iraq or that the Iraqi people have in Iraq," she said during a question-and-answer session after the speech. "But the Iraqis, if they do make good decisions, like Vietnam has made good decisions," can turn their country into a democratic success that will one day seem unremarkable, she said.

On her way to Vietnam to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Rice had rejected comparisons of Iraq and Vietnam as inaccurate and "not helpful" and ticked off a detailed list of differences between the two conflicts.

Her boss, President Bush, also rejected that comparison during remarks after his arrival here Friday.

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Rice learned there may be a benefit to having a state-controlled press: no tough questions.

Hordes of journalists usually pepper her with tough queries, but she got off easy when Vietnamese journalists ignored thorny world issues to politely ask how often she plays the piano.

"I try to play at least once a week or so," said Rice, an accomplished pianist. "It's very important to me."

Rice and Bush are on their first visit to Vietnam as Hanoi hosts the 21-member APEC summit — the country's biggest event ever.

But given a chance to lob their best questions, Vietnamese journalists were more interested in her thoughts about their country than on North Korea's nuclear program or the Iraq war.

"The Vietnamese people are very friendly. So it's been fun. I wish I could stay longer," Rice said.

Vietnam's media is made up of mostly young people who come from a system where authority figures aren't questioned, and rote learning is emphasized over critical thinking. Few have studied Western-style journalism, and all news remains censored by the communist government. A CNN report on the summit was blacked out Friday and replaced by a blue screen and classical music.

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Forget talk of nuclear weapons and terrorism. During a private chat, Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe squeezed in the topic that had the sports world buzzing this week: the Boston Red Sox's offer of $51.1 million for the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka, a Japanese baseball player who is considered a superb pitching talent.

The successful bid was so big it even shook up the big-dollar world of baseball.

Bush and Abe chatted about the star pitcher, perhaps Japan's next big export, on Saturday.

It was a light discussion about "the contribution that may be made to the Japanese economy" if Matsuzaka agrees to a contract, said Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser.

"The president complimented the prime minister on that," Hadley added.

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Bush is enjoying getting to know the Vietnamese people — mostly by looking out the bulletproof windows of his armored limousine as it takes him from the hotel to meetings to lunch to the hotel to dinner and back.

Asked about the contrast between Bush's trip and the country's reception of President Clinton six years earlier, Hadley said Bush has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waves and smiles in return.

"If you'd been part of the president's motorcade as we've shuttled back and forth over the course of the day ... as you can tell, we're in the midst of the Vietnamese people all the time," he said.

Hadley said Bush was impressed by the friendliness of the Vietnamese people, who are coming and going and taking care of business as the American president darts about among them.

"He's seen it by the interactions he has had, by the waves of hands on the streets, the number of people, whether they are office workers or hotel workers or restaurant workers, who, when he leaves an event, come up and want their picture taken with the president," Hadley told reporters at a briefing.

But Bush has yet to leave the motorcade to mingle with the local people the way Clinton did.

Clinton shook hands, shopped and waved at the scene of U.S. surrender and withdrawal in 1975 in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. In Ho Chi Minh City, which Bush also will visit, Clinton strolled with daughter Chelsea along a crowded street of open-front shops, stopping in at some of them and buying a memento he paid for with a $10 bill.

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Bush may have picked up some new speech material.

Abe gave Bush a picture of two of their grandfathers playing golf with President Eisenhower during the waning days of his administration.

"He seemed quite surprised by it and quite touched by it," Hadley said of Bush.

In his speeches, Bush often tells the story of how Japan — the enemy his father, and also a former president, fought in World War II — has become a trusted ally.

To underscore it all, Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's former prime minister, is downright chummy with the younger Bush. The two even toured Graceland in Nashville, Tenn., because Koizumi is a huge Elvis Presley fan.

Now, with the photo, there's "an interesting familial" connection between Bush and Japan's new leader.

Expect to hear more about it.

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Associated Press writer Margie Mason contributed to this report.