Bombing of Vietnam's dikes

During in the Vietnam War, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff considered and rejected several additions to strategic bombing campaigns that would include a series of dikes and dams along Vietnam's Red River delta. A classified 1965 USAF report concluded that the Red River flood control network was too complex and large to be effectively targeted by aerial bombing. [The Battle of the Dikes, Time Magazine, Aug. 07, 1972]

In 1966 John McNaughton, Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, proposed the destruction of the Red River Valley dams and dikes in order to flood rice paddies, disrupt the North Vietnamese food supply, and leverage Hanoi during negotiations, however then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara rejected the idea. [Guenter Lewy, "America in Vietnam", pp. 398-399] President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also discussed bombing the dike network in a 1972 conversation on Operation Linebacker II, later published by journalist Daniel Ellsberg.

The dike and dam system on the Red River had been expanded steadily since independence was declared and by 1972 consisted of nearly 2500 miles of dikes, levees, dams and sluices. Heavy monsoon rains coupled with the preoccupation of the civilian population that normally maintained the water works, led to extensive flooding in 1971. [Seymour M. Hersh, "Dikes in Hanoi Represent 2,000-Year Effort to Tame Rivers", New York Times, July 14, 1972] In an attempt to garner international opposition against the newest US strategic bombing campaign, Operation Linebacker II, the North Vietnamese Government began a propaganda campaign using images of the flood to allege that the US had began a strategic bombing campaign against the Red River dikes. [W Hays Parks, "Linebacker and the Law of War", Air University Review, January-February, 1983]

US investigation into the North Vietnamese claims revealed that US bombing had caused minor damage to the dikes but none of the damaged structures were part of the system protecting Hanoi, and none of the damage was severe enough to cause a major breach. [Seymour M. Hersh, "War Foes See No Evidence of Deliberate Dike Attacks" New York Times, June 24, 1972] Further complicating matters was the North Vietnamese placement of anti aircraft radars, surface to air missiles, and artillery atop dike structures. The dike system was also part of the North Vietnamese transportation network, with roads and rail lines in close proximity to the dikes. Although authorization was given during operation Linebacker I to attack these sites, only the use of napalm, cluster bombs, and other antipersonnel weapons were permitted to be used in an attempt to minimize structural damage. [W Hays Parks, "Linebacker and the Law of War", Air University Review, January-February, 1983]

The North Vietnamese used these incidents as part of their propaganda campaign. Actress Jane Fonda is often credited with helping publicize the bombing, for which then U.N. Ambassador George H. W. Bush accused her of lying. Columnist Joseph Kraft who was also touring North Vietnam, believed that the damage to the dikes was incidental and were being used as propaganda by Hanoi, and that that if the U.S. Air Force were "truly going after the dikes, it would do so in a methodical, not a harum-scarum way." [The Battle of the Dikes, Time Magazine, Aug. 07, 1972]

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