Paul Hackett was on Hardball last night. What really stood out for me was that he’s expanded from his emphasis on training, and in many ways is echoing what a lot of other military experts are saying:

GREGORY: If the president were to call on you now and ask your advice on what you ought to do in Iraq today, what would you tell him?

HACKETT: Define the mission, accomplish that mission if possible and then…

GREGORY: All right. But those are generalities. So, what should the mission be? You define it for him.

HACKETT: I think right now the mission is, we pick up and we get out of there as efficiently and cleanly as possible.

GREGORY: Right away, bring troops home today?

HACKETT: I think that’s what we’re moving toward anyway.

GREGORY: Well, that by—perhaps by next spring.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: In other words, whether or not there’s a political progress, whether or not there is a…

HACKETT: I see no progress there today. I don’t see—I don’t see any political progress.

GREGORY: But how can you say there’s no progress, when you had millions of Iraqis who—who—who showed up to vote, who risked their lives to vote, that there is an effort under way to actually draft a constitution? I mean, do you think that the insurgency really represents the Iraqi people?

HACKETT: I think right—no, I don’t.

Right now, I think the country is in civil war and I don’t think that we’re going to be effective in the middle of a civil war.

GREGORY: Is there any upside to cutting and running now?

HACKETT: I don’t think there is any upside in cutting and running. I don’t think there is—aside from saving billions of dollars and countless lives. But I don’t think there’s any upset—upside in staying either. I think we’re probably at that point now and I think that Americans all have to critically look at what the administration is asking the military to do there. And being beat cops on the streets of Fallujah, Ramadi and Baghdad I don’t think is the best use of the military.

We are nation-building over there. President Bush in 2000 said he didn’t want to nation-build. Well, guess what, folks? That’s what we’re doing over there. We’re nation-building and we’re painting schools. I don’t think painting schools and act—and using the military as beat cops if the best use of this military. That’s my personal opinion.