New Hampshire: The Real Facts

Union Leader Editorial: Hodes Fails Iraq: And America
February 26, 2008

REP. PAUL HODES has been so wrong on Iraq that any change in his position could be nothing but an improvement. Alas, we are still waiting for that change.

From the start, he opposed Gen. David Petraeus' troop surge, saying it wouldn't work. "There is no reason to believe this will accomplish anything productive," he said in January of 2007.

Last summer he predicted the surge would create a "horrible" summer of escalating violence.

After the surge accomplished something "productive" -- a dramatic reduction in violence and the return of some semblance of normalcy to large chunks of Iraq -- Hodes found Baghdad safe enough for a visit last week.

What to his wondering eyes should appear, but a shadow of an insurgency shattered by American forces. And who does he single out for the credit? Why, himself and his fellow Democrats in Congress!

"I think they (Iraqis) are beginning to feel the pressure that the election of 2006 brought," he said.

Sure, he acknowledged the surge, but it is really the Democrats, not the military, who get the credit!

What he saw with his own eyes notwithstanding, Hodes still wants U.S. troops out of Iraq right away. He sniffs that no less than Gen. Petraeus himself told him there is no military solution in Iraq.

But Petraeus has always said that. He says the military can, however, create enough stability to give the Iraqis time to find their own political solution. That is what is happening. That is what Hodes saw himself. And just as the conditions favorable to a political solution are being solidified, Hodes says, again, that we should get out. Why? Because, you see, Hodes has now seen Iraq firsthand and has concluded, "it is clear to me there is ultimately no political solution here."

Really? That's exactly the opposite of what Gen. Petraeus says. "I believe we have a realistic chance of achieving our objectives in Iraq," he told Congress in September.

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