'IDIOTIC' WAR

Inside the Beltway caught up Tuesday with Noel Koch, a lifelong Republican and Ronald Reagan-appointed assistant secretary of defense and director of planning at the Pentagon, who has become a founding member of Veterans for Obama.

Why the switch?

"I've got a 4-year-old grandson, and I want a safer world for him to grow up," replies Mr. Koch, who upon leaving the Pentagon in 1986 became president of Trans Secure, a global security firm based near Washington.

A Vietnam War veteran, who later became a special assistant to Richard Nixon, Mr. Koch has come out against the war in Iraq, labeling it "idiotic."

"John [McCain] insists we have to win this, but he doesn't say what constitutes a victory," he points out. "We've broken our military, wrecked the reserves, we're plowing through our National Guard, and these [troops] are coming back home ... to face malignant neglect, like when I came back from Vietnam.

"We don't have the resources to get through this war, and that's before the financial costs."

Having dealt with terrorism in his Pentagon post, Mr. Koch says U.S. policy once was "you solve the problem by dropping bombs on it. But every time we killed one [terrorist] we created 10 more. I know it's not politically correct to say, but we've got to look at the root causes."

As for now supporting a Democrat for the White House, having been a registered Republican since the late 1950s, Mr. Koch says Barack Obama "shows a steady hand, understands what he wants to achieve, and from the beginning he's made it clear he wants to run a clean campaign."