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Date published: 8/13/2006

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAMPTON--U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, a Republican, hasn't ever agreed with Sen. Hillary Clinton on anything. But she is siding with the New York Democrat in calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation.

"I've made no bones about it the last two years," the 1st District congresswoman told members of the Hampton Roads Chapter of the American Society of Military Comptrollers. "He's probably a nice guy, but I don't think he's a great secretary of defense."

Davis said she based her determination in part on Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq.

She pointed to his 2003 firing of Gen. Eric Shinseki. Before the war started, Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, publicly said he believed that hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops would be needed in Iraq during the postwar period.

"I think Gen. Shinseki has been proven right. His argument with Secretary Rumsfeld was that we needed to have more troops, and he's right," Davis told the group on Thursday.

Davis expressed some guilt for having voted in favor of the war--though it's based on her experiences with injured soldiers, not on thinking the war was a bad idea, she said.

She said she still supports U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq because of "the intelligence we've picked up over there that's protected us here," but she is having second thoughts about American troops being there in the first place.

"All of the intelligence we were given says we should be over there," she said. "If I had known that the intelligence they gave us wasn't correct, I don't know how I would have voted."

Davis' opponent in the Nov. 7 election, Democrat Shawn O'Donnell of Fredericksburg, has proposed firing Rumsfeld.

"She's three years too late," O'Donnell said. "I'm glad to see she's waking up. It was the wrong war at the wrong time for the wrong reason."

Davis supports bringing the troops home quickly.

"I'm not for putting permanent bases there," she said. "As soon as we get enough [Iraqis] trained to take over their country, bring our babies home."

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Date published: 8/13/2006