Saying "I now foresee Vietnam, the sequel," Daniel Ellsberg drew a parallel between the United States' ill-fated involvement in the Vietnam War and the American-led invasion of Iraq.

Daniel Ellsberg: Kerry "must replace Bush ... I want him elected, but I'm not happy with what I'm hearing," he said, quoting Kerry as saying that because the United States already is in Iraq, "'We must persevere. We can't leave.' I hope that is a campaign promise he [Kerry] will go back on." (Newsday Photo / Jim Peppler

Ellsberg, who is best known for releasing to the New York Times 30 years ago what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret report that outlined U.S. involvement in Vietnam over two decades, drew similarities to his experience with government deception and what is happening in Iraq today.

Speaking to about 300 people at Nassau Community College yesterday, Ellsberg, a former Pentagon analyst, predicted that the situation in Iraq, which has seen a new outbreak of resistance to U.S. forces from Iraqi insurgents in recent weeks, "will get far worse."

To Ellsberg, the solution is to withdraw U.S. troops, though he added, "it's going to be harder to get out of this than from Vietnam." But he suggested that, in the long run, it was better to admit error and leave.

"Yes, there is a cost to be paid by admitting error like this ... but the cost to be paid by doubling the debt and reinforcing that error week by week, year by year, decade by decade is incomparably worse ..."

During the course of his speech, "The True Patriot's Act: Following One's Conscience," Ellsberg displayed an unabashed show of partisanship, saying Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, "must replace Bush ... I want him elected, but I'm not happy with what I'm hearing," he said, quoting Kerry as saying that because the United States already is in Iraq, "'We must persevere. We can't leave.' I hope that is a campaign promise he [Kerry] will go back on."

His support of Kerry prompted one audience member, Manny Finer of East Meadow, a retired dry cleaner, to remark, "I think he wants Kerry to win the election. He's playing politics."

Finer said, "I like Bush. I like an aggressive president for a change." Finer was among many senior citizens in the audience who sat in the front half of the auditorium for the talk, which was free and open to the public. Students filled the rear.

As he reflected on the circumstances that led him to release the top-secret Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg, who had been a consultant to the White House and was a Defense Department special assistant in the 1960s, suggested that those in government who become aware of deceptions should reveal them in a timely manner before situations worsen. "It didn't occur to me to inform Congress they were being lied to" early on, he said. "It is possible for Americans to do better, for officials to do better. I don't exclude myself from that."

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