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Southwest Washington Congressman Brian Baird is steeling himself for more criticism from anti-war constituents.

For the first time in Baird’s career, half a dozen police officers stood guard at one of his town hall meetings.

That was in Vancouver Monday night.

And the Democrat is in for it again in Longview Tuesday night, as correspondent Tom Banse reports.

Brian Baird: “I have first and foremost a responsibility to my constituents to tell the truth as I best understand it. If they don’t like what I have to say, we have elections to deal with that.”

People at Baird’s town halls clearly want him to support immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. But the Vancouver Democrat says his two trips to the war zone this year convinced him that withdrawal now would be premature and “precipitous.”

Brian Baird: “I have a little frustration that some of the folks who have come to the town meetings have their minds completely made up.  They don’t want to hear and don’t want to accept even the remotest notion that there’s progress. They don’t want to necessarily confront the real risk of what happens if we pull out.”

Baird says he wants to give the troop surge six more months to work. I’m Tom Banse in Longview.

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Congressman Brian Baird