Dodd meets with NLV firefighters

News that the White House may have lost e-mails relating to the firing of federal prosecutors is part of its pattern of stonewalling Congress, Sen. Chris Dodd said Friday.

"I can't even feign being shocked. They would have shocked me if they produced them," the Connecticut Democrat said of e-mails requested by the Senate judiciary committee, which is investigating whether eight U.S. attorneys were dismissed by the Justice Department for political reasons.

Dodd, who is running for president, made the comments after a campaign stop at a North Las Vegas fire station, part of a "kitchen table" tour of conversations the long-shot candidate is having with small groups of voters in hopes of generating ground-level support.

The missing e-mails are reminiscent of the White House's resistance to releasing information about its domestic spying program and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, Dodd said.

"There's such a pattern of behavior, this is one example after another of this administration's refusal to support basic law and to respond to legitimate inquires for information," he said.

White House officials have said the administration is making an aggressive effort to recover e-mails that were lost.

Dodd also criticized the administration's war and health care policies in a roughly hourlong sit-down with firefighters in North Las Vegas.

The senator, who voted to authorize the war, said he has believed all along that the Iraq war is "a huge mistake" and called for increased diplomacy. He said he supported a proposal to end funding for combat operations after March 31, 2008.

Dodd also mocked his Republican colleague and fellow presidential hopeful John McCain for a recent fact-finding trip in which McCain toured the country with military escorts and said he saw improved security. Dodd called it "a joke of a scene."

"A senator goes over, they've got you in a bubble," he said.

An Air Force veteran at the firehouse kitchen table, 31-year-old firefighter Justin Campbell, said later he didn't like what he heard from Dodd.

"You can't support the troops without supporting what they're doing. You can't tell them they are dying or fighting in vain," said Campbell, a registered Republican who was among eight firefighters to meet with Dodd.

The firefighters were outnumbered by campaign staff and media.

The trip is Dodd's third to Nevada since declaring his candidacy. He said he believes the state, which will hold the second caucus in the nation in January, was a place he could afford to campaign.

The senator has voted in support of the nuclear waste dump under construction at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Dodd said he has since become skeptical of the project and believes new technology may provide better storage solutions.

If elected he would shut down the project, he said.

Dodd plans a "kitchen table" event today hosted by a state assemblyman.