HANOI, Vietnam – Resolving cases of missing Americans from the Vietnam War remains a top priority of the Trump administration, and the Pentagon also is taking steps to find Vietnam’s missing troops, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday.
The Pentagon chief also exchanged Vietnam War artifacts with communist military leaders here, including war souvenirs held by an American veteran for more than 50 years.
The Vietnamese military gear was turned over to Hanoi’s defense minister following closed-door talks with Mr. Hegseth and other U.S. defense officials. The artifacts included a bayonet, an ammunition pouch and a military unit identifier taken from a dead Vietnamese soldier.
In return, the Vietnamese military gave Mr. Hegseth two identification cards of Americans who were lost when their aircraft were shot down north of Hanoi. The cards were among several military ID cards from missing pilots provided to the United States in recent months.
Mr. Hegseth also visited a detachment of military personnel at the Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, office in Hanoi. He praised the work of about a dozen service members engaged in the hunt for missing Americans from the war.
The DPAA has come under fire from critics who say it is not doing enough on the missing in action cases and for allowing the Vietnamese government to charge millions of dollars for its cooperation.
The Pentagon estimates more than 1,500 U.S. troops remain missing from the Vietnam War that ended in 1975 with a communist victory. Many are classified as “non-recoverable.”
“This year … we celebrate 30 years of diplomatic relations, and in three decades the U.S. and Vietnam have gone from enemies to partners, comprehensive strategic partners,” Mr. Hegseth said in opening remarks at the start of the talks.
Gen. Phan Van Giang, the defense minister, also noted the anniversary and said the secretary’s visit holds great significance.
Vietnam values the “comprehensive strategic partnership for peace and sustainable development” with the United States,” Gen. Giang said.
In June, the Pentagon provided Vietnam with a third U.S. Coast Guard cutter, and several Air Force trainer aircraft have been delivered to the communist state’s military, Mr. Hegseth said.
The defense secretary is on a four-nation visit to Asia, including talks in Japan, a defense ministers’ meeting in Malaysia and upcoming defense talks in South Korea.
The focus of much of the trip is to strengthen alliances in the face of growing Chinese military aggression.
“We’ve come here to deepen that cooperation to ensure a stable, free and secure Indo-Pacific that is mutually beneficial for the interests of both the United States and Vietnam,” Mr. Hegseth said at the ministry.
On the issue of resolving cases of missing Americans, Mr. Hegseth said searching for lost service members’ remains and finding out what happened to missing soldiers is a foundation of U.S.-Vietnam defense ties. The MIA issue is “a top priority of this administration and the Department of War,” he said, using the new name for the Pentagon that has not yet been approved by Congress.
“Thank you for Vietnam’s steadfast support,” Mr. Hegseth said. “It is essential to achieving the fullest possible accounting of U.S. service members lost during the war. As we say, leave no man behind, and we appreciate your partnership in that.”
In return for Vietnam’s cooperation on the MIA issue, the Pentagon is scaling up efforts to help Vietnam search for and identify Vietnamese soldiers missing from the war, Mr. Hegseth said.
The exchange of artifacts by the two sides, along with information from the war, seeks to help family members from both nations find out what happened to relatives.
Recently, the U.S. and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding on continuing “these ongoing and important efforts,” he said.
The U.S.-Vietnam memorandum calls for increasing information sharing and providing documents and artifacts on U.S. service members. It also calls for joint work on clearing military ordnance and cleaning up contaminated military sites.
The memorandum follows recent criticism of the Pentagon DPAA in recent months from Prisoner of War-Missing in Action, or POW-MIA, advocacy groups for not being more aggressive in pursuing cases of missing soldiers.
A report by one group made public in July revealed that Vietnam’s government has been charging the Pentagon tens of millions of dollars while failing to provide needed information to resolve cases of missing Americans from the war.
For example, Vietnam, in some cases, charged the Pentagon $10,000 for a single-page document related to missing soldiers, according to the report by the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.
The report said that despite spending more than $86 million since 2016, only 25 cases of missing soldiers were resolved.
The study accused Vietnam of overcharging for its support to recovery efforts in a bid to extort money from the United States. “Vietnam has transformed the POW/MIA accounting mission into a revenue-generating enterprise rather than a humanitarian obligation,” the report said.
The Vietnamese government reacted angrily after the report was disclosed by The Washington Times, temporarily calling off meetings on the issue.
The DPAA has declined to make public the price list Vietnam uses to charge for information or artifacts.
In addition to the DPAA, the Defense Intelligence Agency also has a team of officials conducting research in Vietnam through the group code-named Stoney Beach.
Asked about the U.S. MIA work, David G. White, a former Stoney Beach expert, said: “The only insight or position I have is for more U.S. pressure on the Vietnamese to be more forthcoming, transparent, and reciprocal on all POW/MIA issues.”
DPAA Director Kelly McKeague said in response to the criticism on the high costs of Vietnamese cooperation that the U.S. is committed to providing the fullest accounting for missing personnel from the war. “This humanitarian effort has been sustained because of the long-standing cooperation of the Vietnamese government,” he said.
In September, U.S. and Vietnamese officials discussed the overcharging issue and were told the Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Persons, the counterpart to DPAA, agreed to lower its costs, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
A process for implementing reduced Vietnamese funding demands has been approved by both sides but is on hold pending an end to the U.S. government shutdown.
During a visit to the DPAA office, Mr. Hegseth thanked the troops for working to find out what happened to the missing soldiers.
“You are actively pursuing bringing every last American home — their remains, their artifacts, to their families,” he said.
U.S. military work with the Vietnamese military on MIAs is rejuvenating a military-to-military, country-to-country defense relationship that is assuring the security of the United States, he said.
Mr. Hegseth said the artifacts he turned over to the Vietnamese were supplied by the advocacy group Mission: POW-MIA.
In September, Vietnamese President Luong Cuong, hosted the Monday meeting of U.S. and Vietnamese veterans in New York, where the cards and other artifacts from the Vietnam War were turned over to relatives.
In addition to Gen. Giang, Mr. Hegseth held consecutive meetings with To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, and Mr. Cuong, the president.
Later Monday, Mr. Hegseth traveled to Osan Air Base in South Korea and flew by helicopter to the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea together with South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back.
The two defense leaders will hold annual defense consultative talks on Tuesday. Among the topics expected to be discussed are the Trump administration’s efforts to have South Korea increase support for the 28,000 U.S. troops on the peninsula.
The DMZ is a heavily armed 160-mile zone stretching across the peninsula that remains a flashpoint for a potential conflict with North Korea.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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