Dissent in the Bunker

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Newt Gingrich, who has been advising the Bush Administration as a member of the Defense Policy Board, has gone public with his worries about the shortcomings of administration policy in Iraq, arguing that the administration has been putting far too much emphasis on a military solution and slighting the political element. "The real key here is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow," he said. "And that is a very important metric that they just don't get." As a result, U.S. policy has gone "off a cliff" and is repeating the army's mistakes in Vietnam. (Of course, some people in the military might bristle at this kind of advice coming from Gingrich, who dodged military service in Vietnam but was a vocal advocate for war in Iraq.)