“The most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out.”
— Then-Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Neb, responding in January, 2007, to President George W. Bush’s plan to send a “surge” of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq. Nonetheless, the troops went. Under the command of General David Petraeus, they would help reverse the chaos bordering on civil war then enveloping the country, following the U.S. invasion three years before. Hagel is among the top candidates to succeed Leon Panetta at the Pentagon.
