DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, August 20, 2005 7:00 pm
SCOTTSBLUFF A panorama of the West spread out behind him as Chuck Hagel fielded questions on the deck of John and Megan Massey's home.
Beneath the big sky, painted in shades of rose and blue as dusk approached, lay the rugged and scenic canvas of Nebraska's Panhandle.
Over Hagel's shoulder, a pond, a windmill, a distant water tower. On some days, deer stroll nearby.
Western Nebraska, flag-waving Republican country.
Second question: Iraq.
It seems to be mushrooming, Jeff Scheinost told Hagel at the Massey reception on Thursday.
"What can we do to protect our soldiers?" he asked Nebraska's Republican senator.
Hagel, who had warned early and often about the perils of a precipitate U.S. military attack without broad international support and planning for the aftermath, said a series of bad decisions has left the United States in "deep trouble in Iraq."
U.S. military withdrawal probably will, and should, begin next year, Hagel said. But he said he'd not support any firm timetable that ties the hands of President Bush.
The future of Iraq now must be determined by the Iraqi people, he said.
The end result, he said, probably will be some form of Islamic republic. But there's a 50-50 chance Iraq will implode as Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds vie for power or autonomy.
Already, Iran exercises more influence in Iraq than the United States does, Hagel said.
"It's a pretty bleak picture," he said. "I'm sorry to give you such a report. But I owe you an honest assessment whether you agree with me or not."
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Jeff Scheinost is a Republican, a supporter of President Bush, a military veteran who served eight years in the Army after the Vietnam war.
"I didn't like what I heard," he said in a later interview. "But I agree with him. I'm very happy he was honest and upfront. We would have liked to have heard the war was going great, but that's not what's going on."
Scheinost, the Budweiser distributor in Scottsbluff, said people in the area do not think the war was a mistake and they're glad Saddam Hussein is gone.
But they increasingly believe "the way we went about it was a mistake," Scheinost said. "We didn't have a plan and we didn't know what we were getting into."
People in western Nebraska remain very patriotic, he said.
"But they want to see our troops come home. We've had some soldiers killed from this area and that has hit home really hard.
"It's time for the Iraqi people to accept responsibility. If those people want to blow each other up because of their convictions and religious differences, that's up to them. It's time to bring our soldiers home."
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Iraq was at the forefront of concerns expressed to Hagel as he traveled for a day and a half from a number of appearances in Omaha to Norfolk to a round of stops in western Nebraska.
The tone of the questions and the solemn attention given to Hagel's assessment offered hints of shifting ground.
"The longer we stay," he told a grim-faced group of Heartland Expressway supporters during a tour of the new Scottsbluff airport terminal, "the more likely we'll get bogged down."
Hagel senses a certain uneasiness among Nebraskans, "not despair, but a bit of a lack of confidence," as violence sears Iraq and gas prices head north.
Les Dugger of Gering added the porous U.S.-Mexican border to the growing list of anxieties.
And 10-year-old Andrew Holsinger posed a question about rising gas prices at the Scotts Bluff County Fairgrounds in Mitchell on a bright blue Friday morning.
The United States has been asleep at the pump, Hagel said, failing to develop its own energy resources no new nuclear power plants, no new oil refineries, no development of alternative energy sources, no comprehensive energy policy while dependence on foreign oil has soared to roughly 60 percent of U.S. energy needs.
Now, with economic growth and increased competition in the global marketplace by China and other countries, prices are being dictated by the fundamental rules of supply and demand, Hagel said.
Shortly after those words, as if on cue, a train whistle interrupted as a 100-car coal train rumbled by en route eastward to power plants and other energy markets.
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Flying from Norfolk to Sidney in a chartered Beechcraft King Air, Hagel fielded the inevitable media question about his possible bid for the presidency in 2008.
"I really do not know what I want to do," he said.
Too many "uncontrollables and unknowns" to even begin to anticipate a decision he's determined not to make until after the 2006 elections, he said.
Unmeasured so far is "how deep down inside me" is the desire to be president and to march down the punishing, time-consuming, all-encompassing road that leads to the White House.
Family considerations will be a key factor in his decision, he said.
But, Hagel said, he also recognizes there are "opportunities that will not come again, days you will never recapture."
So he'll wait.
Sure, he said, he thinks about it sometimes, but not in any decision-making mode.
A bid for a third Senate term in 2008 is an active alternative.
"I am still very much challenged by that work. I am just as enthusiastic about this job as I ever was. A lot of work remains to be done. I am not bored."
A consideration in seeking re-election is the likely prospect of becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a third term, assuming Republicans retain control of the Senate.
"That would be a factor. I could have a lot of influence. That would be a consideration for me."
A return to private life is a third alternative.
"There are a lot of important, big jobs outside politics and government that have an influence on mankind."
Business, think tank, academia?
"I've not thought that much about it. I have not gone that deep."
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Sure, Hagel said, he'll visit Iowa sometime in the near future.
In early May, he spent three days in New Hampshire, site of the nation's first presidential primary election.
Iowa, which hosts the first presidential caucuses, will be on his itinerary, along with a number of other states to which he's been invited.
Hagel figures he would need to raise $25 million to be a legitimate candidate, "and I think I could do that."
If he decides to enter the race for the Republican presidential nomination, he said, he'd have to get started in early 2007.
Don Overman of Scottsbluff would like to see it happen.
Introducing the senator at the airport after Hagel's bumpy flight dodging a thunderstorm, Overman said: "Hopefully, he might be something else sometime soon."
Jeff Scheinost hopes Hagel runs, too.
"I like him very much. I think he is knowledgeable in domestic and foreign policy. He's not afraid to take issues on."
Hagel, twice wounded in combat in Vietnam, earned the right to speak up about the war in Iraq, Scheinost said. "Senator Hagel is a patriot."
Hagel was approached at most stops last week by people encouraging him to make a presidential bid.
"I hear that from someone every day and I appreciate it," he said. "But I'm realistic enough to know that all those people represent an infinitesimally small percentage that does not a campaign or a presidency make."
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From Omaha to Mitchell, from the Iowa to Wyoming borders, Hagel has become a familiar face.
At most stops, people ask him to pose with them for snapshots. The pilots of the private aircraft, one of whom lives in Des Moines, were among them.
So were some veterans in wheelchairs from other states who attended the national convention of the Paralyzed Veterans of America at the Embassy Suites in Omaha, where U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson described Hagel as a war hero.
After remarks there, Hagel headed to an event that illustrated one of the pathways to his celebrity.
At the University of Nebraska at Omaha, he sat down for a satellite interview with Wolf Blitzer for CNN's "Situation Room" telecast.
It was his third cable network interview from the UNO campus in three days.
Today, Hagel, a regular on Sunday network news shows, is set to appear on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopolous. The main topic is Iraq.
Blitzer reminded Hagel of Vice President Dick Cheney's indirect but sharply pointed criticism of him as an armchair quarterback on Iraq.
Hagel recalled Cheney's recent claim that the insurgency was "in its last throes," cited all the evidence to the contrary and suggested that "the facts speak for themselves."
"If that's winning," Hagel said, "he's got a different definition of winning than I do."
Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.