Kerrey says he 'struggled' with Vietnam mission

Former Senator Bob Kerrey speaks at a press conference on Thursday in New York.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Former Sen. Bob Kerrey defended a 1969 Vietnam war mission Thursday, expressing sadness for women and children that were killed in the nighttime mission and saying he had "struggled" with his actions since that time.

"Every person who has gone to war has struggled with the question of, 'did he do it right?' and I have struggled with that question privately since February of 1969," Kerrey, a Democrat who represented Nebraska in the Senate, said in a news conference in New York.

The development was the latest in what appears to be a growing controversy over a 1969 Vietnam War mission in which Kerrey participated. The mission, which claimed the lives of women and children, has come to new light after another Navy SEAL involved in it claimed his squad, acting on Kerrey's orders, rounded up people and intentionally killed civilians.

"I feel guilty because of what happened, not because of what we intended to do," Kerrey said. He said he and other members of his SEAL unit were fired upon in the nighttime mission.

"We received fire, returned it and (later) found that apparently, only innocent civilians were killed," he said.

Wednesday, on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports," Kerrey said he felt "anguish and guilt" about those killed in the mission, but he denied a report the civilians were deliberately shot.

But Kerrey said those killings were a mistake, that his Navy SEAL team had been told only enemy personnel were in that particular village in the Mekong Delta on February 25, 1969. He said they were told Viet Cong were holding a district-level meeting at the site on a moonless night.

"We expected it to be a very difficult mission, and we met some people we believed were the outpost and we killed them," Kerrey told Blitzer on Wednesday.

"And then (we) went on and took fire where we expected this meeting to occur and we returned very lethal fire and when the firing was over, all we had was women and children that are dead," he said.

Kerrey's wartime heroics have been central to his political biography. But the 1969 incident, which earned him a Bronze Star for "heroic achievement," was a tragic mistake that has haunted him for 32 years.

The citation for the medal reads: "The net result of his patrol was twenty-one Viet Cong killed, two hootches destroyed and two enemy weapons captured."

Kerrey decided to come forward when he learned that one of his SEAL squad members on that mission had given a different account during a joint interview with The New York Times and CBS News. Gerhard Klann said the squad, acting on Kerrey's orders, rounded up people and intentionally killed civilians.

Kerrey said that account, which the Times will publish Sunday in its magazine, is incorrect.

"I love Gerhard," Kerrey said. "We've talked to one another over the past 32 years. He's never expressed anything of the kind to me over that period of time."

"But that is not the way it happened. I organized this mission, I flew the area before. It was a free-fire zone, that much Gerhard and I agree on," he said. A free-fire zone allows attack without prior command authority.

Kerrey, a former Nebraska senator, now is president of the New School University in New York.

"There were enemy operating in the area and even though there were civilian casualties, I had every reason to believe they were at least sympathetic to the Viet Cong and at the very worst, participating in lethal force against Americans."

Although Kerrey and his political allies have long touted the Medal of Honor he was awarded for his actions in a different battle, he has rarely, if ever, talked about what he did to earn a Bronze Star as a 25-year-old Navy lieutenant. In fact, nowhere in Kerrey's official biography is the Bronze star even mentioned.

But Kerrey denies that his new admission about the incident is a political ploy aimed at heading off future attacks about his activities in Vietnam should he make a run for the White House in 2004. He was a Democratic presidential candidate in 1992.

"I'm married now, I've got a baby due in the fall and I'm very happy with my life. But I do want to take what has been a difficult public memory and talk about it," he said.

"He is so focused on his wife, on a new baby that is coming, on his new job as president (of the New School), he didn't mention to me politics," Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, told CNN Thursday, in recalling his conversation in a recent lunch with Bob Kerrey. "He is so relieved to be doing something different for a while, and that's what he wants to do.

"Unfortunately, everybody always sees everything that any of us do only in a political context. I can assure you that right now ... elective office is the farthest thing on a personal level from Bob Kerrey's mind."

"It was brutal, it was tough, but war is brutal and tough," John Kerry, also a Vietnam veteran, said.

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