"The two candidates for Congress in Virginia’s 5th District disagreed sharply Wednesday over the wisdom and direction of the war in Iraq.

Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, said that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein would have worked with anyone to kill Americans and had to be removed from power.

Democratic challenger Al Weed of Nelson County called the war “a mistake from the very beginning” and said Saddam was a vicious tyrant who had no link to Osama bin Laden or the attacks of Sept. 11.

Goode and Weed also differed over health care and highway policies during a question-and-answer forum held at the Doubletree Hotel Charlottesville by the North Charlottesville Business Council.

Their differences on the war were as stark as any voiced in six recent joint appearances as Weed called for a pullout of U.S. troops and Goode praised President Bush for strong and decisive leadership.

“It was al-Qaida that attacked the United States, not Saddam Hussein, and we needed to go after the person or persons who had attacked us,” said Weed, a 40-year veteran of U.S. Army Special Forces and Army reserves.

“Nevertheless, we went into Iraq with poor planning. Congress didn’t ask the right questions, didn’t make the administration justify the reasons for it, and we’re stuck,” Weed said. “In the paper this morning, there’s 1,102 people, soldiers, men and women, who have died in Iraq and there still seems to be no clear understanding of how we get out of there.”

Weed said that America “will not be able to build a democracy in Iraq in any time frame that this democracy will support, and I don’t want to see a single soldier die while we try to figure out we made a mistake. We made a mistake. Bring them out now.”

Saddam was a clear and present danger to Americans, Goode said. “I supported going into Iraq,” said the veteran of the Virginia Army National Guard from 1969 to 1975. “In my opinion, the United States was at the top of the list for Saddam Hussein. He killed millions in his own country and, if given the opportunity, he would kill millions of us.”

The GOP congressman said that Saddam “would have worked with Osama bin Laden. He would have worked with anyone he could have” and had a few billion dollars stashed away. “If you don’t think that could have bought a lot of damage, you are living in a dream world,” Goode said.

He drew applause from the crowd of local business leaders when he praised Bush as a strong leader, saying, “We need a strong leader in the United States at this time, someone with courage. If Europe had had a few people with courage in the 1930s, we wouldn’t have had millions of people lost in World War II.”

Goode told the business council that he supports a U.S. 29 bypass around Charlottesville. “If we get 50 percent of the community favoring one route or another, we can go forward,” he said. “I want a bypass, period. I think it would enhance the 29 corridor.”

Weed said the region and the nation need a more balanced transportation plan, including more rail and mass transit. He predicted that many trucks facing tolls on a widened Interstate 81 would start using U.S. 29.

“I think one of the big things we lack in this country, part of what new energy would bring, is we don’t have a national transportation policy, so what we don’t have is a good balance between various types of transportation, mass transportation, rail and whatnot,” the Democrat said.

As in most of the two candidates’ joint appearances, they clashed over health care issues as Goode touted tort reform and refundable tax credits of $1,000 for individuals and $3,000 for families to assist with the cost of private health insurance. He wants $250,000 caps on pain and suffering awards and punitive damages in medical malpractice cases, plus caps on lawyers’ fees.

Weed said he favors a single-payer enhanced Medicare system to cover all Americans for health care and prescription drugs. He said employers could be freed from the costly burden of providing medical coverage and insisted that he is not proposing a Canadian-style national health insurance plan.

A single-payer Medicare system could be more efficient than insurance company plans, Weed said.

Goode said he feared Weed’s single-payer plan would lock people into “one kind of system only, and I fear we will be like Canada. … I am always leery of putting the federal government in charge of something.”" (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, October 21, 2004)

Contact Bob Gibson at (434) 978-7243 or bgibson@dailyprogress.com.