U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's campaign says she is asking the tough questions.

In response to criticism from Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, Dole spokesman Hogan Gidley said that she has "not been shy" about pressing for answers about "the mistakes in Iraq."

"Senator Dole has introduced legislation that would insist the financial responsibility of this war be shifted to the Iraqi government, and she joined a bipartisan effort to ask for more frequent and more detailed war reports from General [David] Petraeus," he wrote in an e-mail to Dome.

He also argued that Democratic opponent Kay Hagan has not taken a consistent position on Iraq since entering the race for U.S. Senate.

"Rather than doing Kay Hagan's dirty work with negative attacks, Senator McCaskill's time would be better spent on coaching Mrs. Hagan who clearly needs a tutorial on the subject," he wrote. 

U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Hillary Rodham Clinton are in agreement that Iraq should start paying for its own reconstruction.

Dole, a Salisbury Republican, joined Clinton and eight other colleagues today in saying they want the beleagued nation to get some new United States tax dollars in the form of a loan -- not a grant.

They also called on Iraq to pay for some of the American military's needs, including its fuel costs, reports Barb Barrett.

The senators said in a letter to Senate spending leaders that oil prices will give Iraq an enormous chunk off dollars and that it should use some of that to help itself. They said the United States should end its "blank check policy" toward Iraq.

Several senators expressed as much in remarks to Gen. David Petraeus recently in his visits to Capitol Hill.

The senators plan to offer an amendment in the next war supplemental bill that would require Iraq to repay some of its reconstruction costs.

Because Sen. Elizabeth Dole was in North Carolina today with her family after the death of her brother, she was unable to be at today's Senate Armed Services hearing with Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker in Washington.

But Dole, a Salisbury Republican, did have a series of questions she had planned to ask, and she submitted them for the official hearing record, Barb Barrett reports.

Among her questions:

* How much longer can the surge be sustained before it does irreparable harm to the force?
* What would happen if we withdraw before Iraq security forces have the ability to maintain security there?
* How important a role do private security firms play in maintaining security across Iraq?
* Given Iraq’s ethnic makeup and history of sectarianism, is it possible for Iraqis to think of themselves as Iraqis and less as members of various ethnic groups?

In her prepared statement, Dole also said she wants to put the war in the context of longer-term defense spending. She said she was especially concerned that spending in Iraq not take away from the military’s current plans to expand the forces.

"If we are to actually address this problem, then we must ensure that the overall defense budget is adequate rather than merely acknowledge the problems that our troops confront when defense spending is insufficient," she said.

Dole has been lobbying for several months for her proposal to make defense spending at least 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is adopting a more skeptical tone of the Iraq war.

In two recent news articles, the Salisbury Republican was quoted as being more critical of the war than she has in the past.

The Washington Post noted Wednesday that Dole, "a mainstream conservative who was never publicly strayed from the administration's position in Iraq," has said she would now support some Congressional measures to force a change in policy:

"The difficulty of the current American and Iraqi situation is rooted in large part in the Bush administration's substantial failure to understand the full implications of our military invasion and the litany of mistakes made at the outset of the war," Dole said.

The New York Times also noted that Dole told General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker that a "conspicuous gap" exists between supporters and opponents of a long-term commitment in Iraq.

U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry served briefly in Iraq yesterday.

For a few hours, the Washington Post incorrectly reported in a story on Gen. David Petraeus' Congressional testimony that the Cherryville Republican was "an Iraq war veteran."

Republicans, by contrast, seized on the plan as a political lifeboat after months of being forced to vote against measures repudiating Bush's policy. "Let the generals in the field dictate," said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (N.C.), an Iraq war veteran.

The mistake was fixed by the time the final version of the story was put together, but in the meantime the Post's wire service had already sent it out to papers like the Arizona Republic, the Indianapolis Star and the Honolulu Advertiser.

Hmmm... maybe they were confusing McHenry with this guy?

Update: Barb Barrett suggests that the reporters were confusing him with U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania, who served out of the Fort Bragg Army base.

Hat Tip: Greg Flynn