An interview with Al Franken

[gristy]

...It's very sad. I was in front of an audience in Asheville, N.C., today, it was about 2,000 people. I really am completely in a quandary about what to do in Iraq. Some of the audience didn't like that. They just want to get out immediately.

And why do you stop short of that?

Because I think it would be a disaster. The place I think would descend into total chaos, not that it isn't in chaos right now. It would be managing to do the worst of all possible worlds every step of the way. Lied into war, not enough troops, allow the looting, disband the Iraqi army, corrupt contracting, no reconstruction to speak of, torturing people, not responding to the insurgency for a year and a half, and then pulling out. It'd be like, "Wow, they nailed it every time."

In your book, you say, "If you want to know what I think we should do in Iraq, it's that we should think about what we have to do in America. We have to throw these guys out."

We can't trust these guys. We have to be able to investigate what's going on over there, because Congress is not doing its oversight job because the Republicans control. First, we have to win in 2006 and then start doing the oversight about what's going on in that war. Because you literally can't trust them. They say that last September there were 95,000 troops in the Iraqi military and now there are 200,000. Except that Rumsfeld said that there were 210,000 troops in February of last year. If you're going to lie, get your story straight.

more at http://www.madison.com/tct/features/index.php?ntid=63719&ntpid=0
He's not asked if he's running for Senate next year. I hope he does!

on edit: title for clarity