"The Iraqis," said Shays, before briefly threatening to end the interview on the subject, "are starting to like us, and that's a fact."
The congressman grew animated when asked if that was not an anecdotal judgment, explaining that he had gauged the opinion of Iraqis by going "outside the umbrella of the military" on his frequent visits to the country.
It is a bit of a sore spot, I suppose. In 2008, on the five year anniversary of the invasion, Shays says he regrets his vote on the IWR because we didn't find any WMD in Iraq:
"Knowing what I know now, I would not have voted (for it), on two accounts," said Shays, of the 4th District in Fairfield County, in a phone interview. "One, there weren't weapons of mass destruction. But the second count is if I had known how poorly we would fight the war the first three and a half years. So, you know we made horrendous mistakes."
Yet way back in 2006, when the war was a mere three and a half years old, Shays said we should have gone into Iraq "sooner" and "not for WMD":
Note to reporters and constituents who may plan to ask their Congressman about this discrepancy: be prepared for another "animated" response.
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