Tom Vilsack visited Concord yesterday to talk about improving housing and services for people with disabilities, but he couldn't stay away from the 2008 primary's No. 1 one topic: Iraq.

During an hour-long speech at Granite State Independent Living, Vilsack answered questions and outlined the advances he made in disability-rights during his eight years as governor of Iowa. But he returned to the war over and over, decrying planned troop increases and predicting dire domestic consequences.

"If 20,000 more troops go over there, resources will follow," said Vilsack. "I can guarantee you that in Congress when a motion is made to increase housing for people with disabilities . . . someone will say we just simply do not have the resources. We do have the resources; we just don't have the priorities."

Vilsack was the first 2008 candidate to visit Granite State Independent Living's Concord offices, but CEO Clyde Terry hopes he won't be the last. People with disabilities, he said, are voters looking for a candidate who will give them what they need.

"Education opportunities, opportunities to go to college so they can be successful, independent, economically self-sufficient, investors, taxpayers, real live citizens viewed equally like anybody else," he said. "What's their vision for people with disabilities? What's their vision for bringing us all forward together? That's our charge for all the candidates."

Vilsack and his wife, Christie, arrived around lunchtime, both wearing purple "I'm a health care voter" stickers and leading a small entourage of staff and traveling press. The several dozen people at Granite State Independent Living were gathered to celebrate groundbreaking on a new kind of home for people with disabilities.

Vilsack told them how his administration had used tax credits to build 1,300 accessible apartments throughout Iowa and how he'd worked to make the state's capitol more wheelchair friendly. He gave detailed answers to questions about publicly funded nursing homes and asked one Granite State employee to send him more information about affordable housing shortages in New Hampshire.

Their struggles for housing and programs, he said, will suffer if troop levels increase in Iraq.

"We are spending literally billions of dollars to reconstruct a country halfway around the world, which means we don't have enough resources for some of the programs that are so important to keeping the American dream alive," he said. "It may be hard to see the connection between an effort to escalate troops in Iraq and the opportunities to create more housing for people with disabilities, but there is a connection."

Aside from siphoning resources, Vilsack said additional troops won't improve the situation in Iraq. He'd prefer to see the United States work with other countries to stabilize the Middle East through diplomacy, not military might.

"We are about to make a very serious mistake," he said. "One that was made before. . . . We're now going to make a larger mistake. Escalation in Iraq will not solve the problems that this country faces. It will not require the Iraqis to take matters into their own hands and to make the decisions that only they are willing to make."

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By MEG HECKMAN

Monitor staff