Reporting For Duty

I don't live in Ohio but I am passing this article along to voters I know there. This guy's bid for the Congressional race was much to close for comfort for his highly Republican district. His toughest competition may even come from his Democratic rival. But, I'll be paying attention to this race:

Marine Reservist Maj. Paul Hackett might be the one to put some real fight back into the Democratic Party. In a head-turning first run for office, Hackett, the first Iraq war veteran to enter the national political arena, narrowly lost a congressional bid against Republican Jean Schmidt in a special election held last summer in Ohio's most conservative district. Despite a serious financial handicap, little political experience and a blunt political demeanor -- he called George W. Bush "chicken hawk" and "son of a bitch" with regard to the war -- Hackett's strong showing fired up Democrats nationwide.

[...]

You supported invading Afghanistan, but you've said you think we went to Iraq based on lies. You do agree with the president, however, in that you don't think we can 'cut and run.' What would you do differently in Iraq?

First of all, if this president wanted to succeed in Iraq, the first thing he would have done is listen to the generals in the very beginning when they said it would take more than 150,000 troops. General Shinseki said that and was summarily fired. That was before the invasion of Iraq.

But what would you do now?

If I were the president, I'd tell the military to figure out how we systematically and in organized fashion get our troops out of there, because the war's over. It's not going to get any better.

When you ran for Congress, you favored better training for Iraqi forces. Now you're saying we should get out?

There are two options: Increase troop strength or train the Iraqi military with a match of one American soldier for every Iraqi soldier. That's not going to happen. Everybody knows that, so if we're not going to train the Iraqi military, let's quit spending our money and spending our lives.

Here's the problem: We've been there two-plus years and there's nothing objective this country can point at and say, 'This is what we've improved since we've been over there.' The infrastructure is worse -- the electrical grid, the water grid, the sewage grid, the road system. All that infrastructure is worse today than when we got there two-plus years ago.

The Bush administration says there's progress.

Bullshit. I've been there. There's no success unless you call painting schools success. We've painted a lot of schools."