Panetta plans to visit former US base in Vietnam

[LETHALFORCE]

Panetta plans to visit former US base in Vietnam - Boston.com

SINGAPORE—U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is set to visit the former U.S. air and naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, becoming the most senior American official to go there since the war ended.

Panetta says he hopes to encourage efforts with Vietnam to locate and identify more of the U.S. war dead who are still missing.

He plans to visit the USNS Richard E. Byrd, a cargo ship operated by the Navy's Military Sealift Command. The ship has a largely civilian crew and is used to move military supplies to U.S. forces around the world.

The U.S. military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command has six recovery teams and two investigative teams in Vietnam searching for troop remains. There are about 1,200 unaccounted for service members believed to be in Vietnam.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is set to visit the former U.S. air and naval base at Cam Ranh Bay

Cam Ranh Bay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After the Russian withdrawal, the United States negotiated with Vietnam to open Cam Ranh Bay to calls by foreign warships, as it previously had done with the ports of Haiphong in northern Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh City in the south. In a move that security commentators say is aimed at countering China's build-up of naval power in the South China Sea, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung announced on October 31, 2010 that the bay would reopen to foreign navies after a three-year project to upgrade the port's facilities.[5][6] Vietnam has hired Russian consultants to direct the construction of new ship-repair facilities, which are scheduled to open to surface ships and submarines by 2014.[7]