Vilsack opposes troop cap

LONDONDERRY, N.H. -- On a presidential campaign stop in New Hampshire, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack said he disagreed with the idea of keeping troop levels in Iraq the same, a proposal his Democratic rival Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed earlier this week.

"I don't get the capping of troops thing," Vilsack told reporters. "I would clearly begin the process of taking troops out of Iraq. This is not the time to cap and certainly is not the time to escalate."

On Wednesday, Clinton said she opposed President Bush's plans to add an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq in order to stabilize the country. Going further, she proposed a "cap" on current troop levels. Hours after Clinton made her proposal, Senators Barack Obama, of Illinois, and Chris Dodd, of Connecticut, who are also pursuing presidential bids, announced their own troop cap proposals.

Vilsack said a cap does not address the fundamental problem in Iraq: Iraqis are too dependent on American troops and are not invested enough in solving problems themselves.

"The longer we are there the more of a crutch we become," said Vilsack.

The former two-term Iowa governor was in New Hampshire for two events Friday after raising money in Boston on Thursday. At his first event, Vilsack addressed a room of seventh graders from Londonderry Middle School. He used the dry erase board to explain how government budgeting works and pulled down a map of the world to explain the situation in Sudan.

When a student asked Vilsack when he would take all the troops out of Iraq if elected president, he said he would talk with his military advisers first, but he would get them out "as soon as possible."