One thing Penn State alumnus Wayne White doesn't like is people in government who stick with foreign policy when they're in office, then gripe about it when they're out.

Which is why the former deputy director of the U.S. State Department's Middle East Intelligence division said the problems he has with the war in Iraq are nothing he hasn't already brought up in Washington, D.C.

"What you're going to hear [from me] isn't stuff they haven't heard," said White, who worked for 32 years for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He spoke last night to about 80 people in Foster Auditorium at Pattee Library.

"There have been some real blind spots since March of 2003," he said, referring to the start of the war in Iraq.

According to White, the top priority after the war began should have been stopping the insurgency and looting rather than the search for weapons of mass destruction.

"In the last year, insurgents have tripled their attack against 'stability,' " White said, referring to police, government and elected officials.

Due to this ongoing threat, White said tens of thousands of Iraq's "best and brightest" -- doctors and other professionals -- have left.

"[The insurgents] are basically trying to take down the ability of the government to function when we leave," he said.

Another problem with the administration, White said, is that it has been obsessed with meeting arbitrary deadlines, sacrificing quality along the way.

He said that the the writing of the constitution was squeezed in to meet a deadline.

"We're ramming it home assuming that more momentum will be built ... but it's backwards," he said.

White said the solution
is neither leaving Iraq nor sticking with the current program.

"The solution is in the middle," he said. "There is no military solution; the solution is political."