Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak worked unsuccessfully in 1996 to get Bob Dole elected president. McPeak, a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supported another Republican — George W. Bush — in the 2000 presidential election.

In 2004, McPeak was visiting Mankato and endless other places saying he’d made “a big mistake” in supporting George W. Bush in the previous presidential election.

McPeak, urging support for Democrat John Kerry, was harshly critical of Bush and his administration, saying a combination of arrogance and ignorance in the White House had led America into a tremendous mess in Iraq — an unnecessary war that resulted in 1,100 dead American soldiers and more than 7,000 wounded.

“So here we are two years later and both of those numbers have doubled,” McPeak said.

And there’s no progress to show for all the pain and death, he said.

“No. The situation has deteriorated and deteriorated quite badly.”

McPeak, who led the Air Force during the Gulf War in 1991, continues to be stinging in his critique of Bush and his advisers, saying they not only took America into a dishonest war — they’ve been incompetent in conducting it.

But McPeak doesn’t let Congress escape the criticism.

“I regard the performance of Congress in the period leading up to the war as absolutely without stomach,” he said.

A longtime Republican who was a big admirer of the first President Bush, McPeak is now a registered Independent in his retirement home of Oregon. He unabashedly suggests that voters need to hold the GOP majority in Congress accountable for the failure to provide proper oversight of the Iraq war.

“The Congress supposedly has the power to declare war. They have the power to control money,” he said. “In this case they didn’t do it because they’re a bunch of chickens.”

‘Bullish about Iraq’

For former Minnesota Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of the Middle East Subcommittee for six years, what’s happening today in Iraq is one of America’s proudest moments.

“I just believe the United States is an exceptional country,” said Boschwitz, a Republican and a strong supporter of the Iraq war.

What America is doing in Iraq may be unprecedented, he said.