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Female Iraq vet runs for seat Duckworth lost

CHICAGO — Jill Morgenthaler’s 30-year Army career took her to Korea, Berlin, Bosnia and Iraq.

Now, the 53-year-old suburban mother of two and retired Army Reserve colonel has embarked on a new mission at home: running for Congress in a race that could seem eerily similar to voters — and incumbent Republican Rep. Peter Roskam — if Morgenthaler wins next month’s Democratic primary.

In 2006, Roskam edged out Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs in combat, in one of the nation’s most hotly contested congressional races. This time, Duckworth is backing Morgenthaler’s run for the 6th Congressional District in Chicago’s northwest suburbs.

“Why not? We female vets are a tough bunch and we stand up for what we believe in,” said Duckworth, now director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs and a major in the Illinois Army National Guard.

Morgenthaler is running in the Feb. 5 primary against Stan Jagla, a 45-year-old Roselle businessman who says he’s currently between jobs. Roskam has no Republican primary opponent, and a spokesman said the congressman wouldn’t comment until his Democratic challenger was determined.

Roskam spent millions to defeat Duckworth in a hard-fought race during which the National Republican Congressional Committee ran television ads portraying Duckworth as liberal on immigration issues.

The race also drew international attention because of Duckworth’s personal story — she was a helicopter pilot who was gravely wounded when her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Morgenthaler’s service in Iraq was different. She was a military spokeswoman during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, when pictures were leaked to the public showing U.S. soldiers posing with detainees, some of them naked and in compromising conditions.

In June 2004, Morgenthaler wrote about it on her blog, “GI Jill’s Adventures in Baghdad.”

“As people get upset about Abu Ghraib, one thing that should never be forgotten: these are men who have murdered Americans and would continue to murder Americans if given the opportunity,” she wrote.

Morgenthaler said she was not trying to be a military apologist, but was responding to suggestions in the Arab press that Americans were torturing innocent people.

“I would never apologize what those seven [U.S. soldiers] did. Not only what they did was totally wrong to the prisoners, it was wrong just to our nation. It really hurt the good we were doing,” she said. Seven enlisted soldiers were convicted of crimes at the prison.

“Sometimes I just felt back then ... we forget that these people were in jail for a reason,” she said.

Jagla, who doesn’t like to talk about his competition, said voters must decide if Morgenthaler’s military connection to Abu Ghraib should be a campaign issue.

But Morgenthaler said concerns about the Iraq war have been pushed aside lately by growing concerns over the economy, although the two are entwined because billions of dollars are being spent on the war.

“We do need to come up with a strategy and a way of getting Iraqis to step up to the plate, the allies in the area stabilizing the region and then us bringing our young people home in a smart, safe way — safe for them but also safe for our nation — and start returning that money back here,” she said.

Jagla said the U.S. should “cut our losses and leave,” with American troops replaced by U.N. peacekeepers.

While Morgenthaler hopes to build on the support that gained Duckworth 49 percent of the vote, she knows she can’t be seen as Duckworth’s clone if she beats Jagla for a chance to unseat Roskam, the late Rep. Henry Hyde’s hand-picked successor.

“My biggest challenge is for people to meet me ... so there isn’t a stereotype: ‘Oh, another Tammy Duckworth,’ ” said Morgenthaler, who lives in Des Plaines.

Morgenthaler, who quit her job as Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s point person on public safety and homeland security to run for Congress, is counting on her military and civilian experience to win votes.

She also worked for more than a dozen years at the Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Chicago in a variety of roles, including disaster preparedness.

Morgenthaler is casting herself as the “local girl,” even though she has lived just outside the district since it was redrawn, after spending about a dozen years inside the boundary.

During the last campaign, Roskam, a former state senator, portrayed Duckworth as an outsider — she didn’t live in the district either — who was financed by Democratic Party liberals. Morgenthaler expects party backing if she wins the primary.

And because this is a presidential election year, Morgenthaler is counting on a large Democratic turnout to help her finish what Duckworth started.

“I really think this is the year,” she said.