Pelosi calls for new attorney general

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added her voice to the growing chorus of discontent over the Justice Department's firing of eight federal prosecutors, saying Monday, "I believe we need a new attorney general." In a meeting with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune and in an interview with WGN-TV, Pelosi (D-Calif.) said there was a reason Republicans feared a Democratic victory last November.

"They knew that the era of no oversight was over and that they would have to be held accountable," she said, citing the scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center over the treatment of wounded soldiers, as well as questions about whether politics played a role in the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys. Pelosi spoke as the war in Iraq was entering its fifth year, detailing her party's efforts to curtail American involvement there and bring the troops home. She called the war "a grotesque mistake" that has weakened the armed forces and made it harder for the military to respond elsewhere to threats to the national interest. "This is a war without end and it is a commitment that is unlimited and we have to have a better alternative," she said. "It's a tragedy."