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The prosecution of politicos and the politics of prosecution.

The not-entirely successful pursuit of the former defined the final two years of David Iglesias' stint as U.S. attorney in New Mexico.

The latter, Iglesias said as he left office today, cost him his job.

"I know that my performance was not the real issue," Iglesias said in an interview Tuesday, less than a month after Paul McNulty, the deputy U.S. attorney general, told a Senate hearing the opposite.

"That only leaves one possibility," Iglesias continued, "and that's politics."

In an e-mail to a friend that wound up this week on the New Mexico politics blog run by Joe Monahan, Iglesias described his dismissal as a political "fragging" - a reference to the killing of military officers by their subordinates.

Though he said the term wasn't one he would have chosen for public comments, Iglesias confirmed Tuesday that he wrote the e-mail and said it accurately reflected his frustration over the Justice Department's handling of his dismissal.

"This was not a respectful way to treat someone who has served this administration for five years," he said.

"I would have had no objection to someone calling me and saying I'd lost my political support. Instead, they said it was performance, and I've got lots of data showing that's not the case."

At a news conference today, Iglesias handed out copies of a January 2006 letter from the Department of Justice praising his job performance.

"I understand that the recent evaluation of your office went very well," Michael Battle, director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, wrote. "I want to commend you for your exemplary leadership in the Department's priority programs."

The New York Times reported this week that six of eight recently dismissed U.S. Attorneys had received positive evaluations from the Justice Department.

For Iglesias, whose tenure will almost certainly be remembered for high-profile corruption cases involving prominent New Mexico Democrats, the irony is that his undoing came, by his account, at the hands of his own party.

But if the man who served as a model for the defense attorney played by Tom Cruise in the movie "A Few Good Men" was fragged, Iglesias insisted he doesn't know which fellow Republican threw the grenade, or why.

Was it a member of New Mexico's congressional delegation, upset over his handling of the cases against former Democratic state Treasurers Robert Vigil and Michael Montoya?

Was the final straw Iglesias' decision not to seek indictments ahead of November's elections in another corruption investigation - this one involving rumored kickbacks to powerful Democrats and other officials during the construction of several Albuquerque courthouses?

Or was it someone in Washington upset about something else?

"It could have been someone at the White House, someone at Justice or someone in Congress," Iglesias said. "All political roads lead back to Washington, but no one has reached out to me to tell me what the problem was. I wish they had."

Staffers from the offices of U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, both Albuquerque Republicans, did not return messages Tuesday seeking comment.

The removal of Iglesias and the other U.S. attorneys has already prompted some odd political music in the nation's capital. Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into why the Republican attorneys were forced out by the Bush administration, saying the moves appear politically motivated.

Iglesias said he would testify as part of that investigation if he's subpoenaed, but he would prefer not to.

"I'm not a disgruntled former prosecutor," he said.

Still, the prosecutor once seen as a rising political star in his party acknowledged his dismissal had put a strain on his relationship with the GOP.

"No party is perfect, and the last two months have been imperfection on a grandiose scale," he said. "From a political standpoint, why would they let go an evangelical, Hispanic veteran?"

Asked whether he'd had any communication with Domenici or Wilson since he was told to resign, Iglesias responded only by saying he appreciated U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat, calling him to thank him for his service.

But Iglesias took some parting shots at another Democrat, former state attorney general and congressional candidate Patricia Madrid.

Iglesias has previously said problems with the Vigil case likely contributed to his dismissal, and partly blamed Madrid for those problems.

Vigil's first trial ended in a deadlock after a single juror held out against convictions on 24 counts including extortion, racketeering and conspiracy. A retrial in the fall netted only a single conviction on one count of attempted extortion.

Between trials, Madrid indicted several cooperating federal witnesses on state charges, and one of those witnesses refused to testify at Vigil's second trial.

Monday, Iglesias called Madrid's move a "terrible misstep."

"It amounted to a legalized form of obstruction of justice," he said. "It was shocking, it was unprecedented, and there was no legitimate law enforcement reason for doing what she did."

Still, Iglesias said he was pleased with the outcome of the case. Vigil, who has appealed his conviction, was sentenced to three years in prison. Montoya, who pleaded guilty to a single count of extortion, hasn't been sentenced.

"Ultimately, sending (Vigil) away for 40 years wouldn't have been just either," Iglesias said. "I feel three years is an appropriate sentence. People forget that he took a lot less money than Montoya did."

Iglesias said there was nothing major he would change about his handling of the case, which he said set a precedent for prosecution of public corruption in New Mexico.

"We put corruption cases back on the front burner," he said. "For 20 years, this office hadn't done any."

As for the investigation of a kickback scheme reportedly involving construction of Albuquerque's Metro Court and several other buildings - a corruption case rumored to dwarf the Vigil and Montoya cases - Iglesias said he expected the case to move forward within a month.

But as he defended his tenure, Iglesias said indictments in that case would not come under his watch.

"I wish I would have that honor," he said. "But it will have to wait for my successor."

Instead, Iglesias, 49, said he will take a month off to mull his future. He has two job opportunities in the private sector, he said, and four kids to put through college.

And still a lawyer with the Naval Reserve, he said he has some overseas military duty coming up in April.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.