By MIKE BAKER
Associated Press Writer

NEW BERN, N.C. - All five Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, meeting in a debate for the first time Friday, agreed to end the war in Iraq, but the front-runners disagreed on how quickly troops should be pulled from the country.

State Sen. Kay Hagan said the war should not end immediately.

“I don’t think we can pull out just on Day 1,” the Greensboro Democrat said in the forum hosted by Public Radio East and the North Carolina League of Women Voters. “I think we need to have a diplomatic surge. This needs a political solution.”

Hagan’s chief rival, Chapel Hill corporate financial adviser Jim Neal, disagreed, saying saying he would even vote in Congress to withhold war funding in an effort to end the conflict.

“The time to talk about a diplomatic surge is way over,” Neal said. “It’s time to get out of Iraq.”

Read the full article at the Winston-Salem Journal website