[...]
The traditional Asian belief that a person’s soul cannot rest in peace unless the body is properly interred makes the issue of MIAs particularly painful for many Vietnamese, even those who long ago made new lives for themselves in the United States.

That spiritual concern plays into Vietnamese Americans’ support of a recent U.S. government decision that might sound contrary to their interests: suspending a program to identify Vietnamese war dead.

At the urging of U.S. Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), the State Department is now withholding $1 million allocated to a U.S. Agency for International Development program that would identify remains until the Vietnamese government agrees to identify MIAs from both sides of the conflict.

That was the stated purpose of the program when Congress approved funding in December 2009. But as the initiative was set to get underway this month, Webb said, the Vietnamese government indicated that it would use the money only to identify soldiers from the Communist north, not southern troops who fought alongside American troops.

“We basically have said this program should not go forward unless we have a guarantee that they’ll be looking for soldiers from both sides,” said Webb, who fought as a Marine in Vietnam and has visited the country many times since, most recently in August.

Officials with the Embassy of Vietnam in Washington did not return messages from The Washington Post seeking comment, but Hanoi indicated to Agence France-Presse that it would reject any conditions on the money.

“We think that humanitarian cooperation must come from the spirit of goodwill, sincerity and without condition,” Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi told Agence France-Presse.

[...]

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