Salazar says Iraqi
troops key to U.S. withdrawal Colorado congressman spends four days meeting with
U.S. and Iraqi officials Rep. John Salazar received a blunt reminder
last week of the widespread violence in Iraq as he rode a helicopter from Baghdad
into the battle-torn city of Fallujah in western Iraq. "The machine
gunner started firing at something on the ground, saying there had been rocket
activity in the area," Salazar, D-Colo., said in an interview Monday. "I
didn't see anything being fired at us, but the night before we got to Fallujah,
two of our Marines had been killed in an ambush there, so it's still a very dangerous
city." Salazar, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, made
a four-day trip to Iraq last week with the panel's chairman, Rep. Steve Buyer,
R-Ind., and VA Secretary Jim Nicholson. It was Salazar's second trip to
Iraq and after meeting with top U.S. and Iraqi officials, he came away with two
strong impressions - that U.S. forces are having success in training Iraqi troops
and police, but despite that, Iraq has become more dangerous as Sunnis and Shiites
make war on each other. July was the deadliest month of the fighting in
Iraq, with 3,438 civilians killed in sectarian attacks. Salazar said U.S.
officials - he met with the senior commander, Army Gen. George Casey - are frank
in acknowledging that fighting between Sunnis and Shiites has grown in the past
year and makes it unlikely that any withdrawal of U.S. troops is likely in the
near future. "Gen. Casey told me he wasn't optimistic as he was a year
ago about our withdrawing troops anytime soon," the congressman said. Salazar
sounded much like President Bush at his news conference on Monday, saying that
the situation on the ground ultimately will dictate when U.S. troops may leave. "All
we can do is try to turn the job of security over to Iraqis as soon as it's possible
to do that, "he said. Salazar said the group also met with Iraqi President
Jalal Talibani and received much the same message. "The State Department
has done some polling in Iraq and their latest survey showed that 76 percent of
Iraqis want the U.S. to leave, but only 46 percent want us to leave soon,"
he said. The progress, Salazar said, is in the number of Iraqi soldiers
now trained and the broader regions where they are taking responsibility for security.
Iraqi units are now operating independently of U.S. forces in some areas, taking
charge of more than 40 forward operating bases. "There has been talk
that no progress is being made in Iraq, but it seems the Iraqi army is taking
more responsibility for the country," he said. "They are having 49 commercial
flights a day into Baghdad's airport and that certainly wasn't the case when I
was there 18 months ago." After leaving Iraq, the congressional group
stopped in Langstuhl, Germany, to see the U.S. military hospital there. "The
day we got there, they were bringing in 14 wounded soldiers and some had truly
awful injuries," he said. "The care they received was impressive, but
the reason those of us on the veterans committee made the trip is to see what
these soldiers are going to need when they are transitioned into civilian life." Salazar
was unsuccessful last spring in trying to add $600 million to an emergency Pentagon
spending bill that would pay for additional mental health services for returning
Iraqi veterans. By its own analysis, the Army said that 1 in 3 returning
veterans was requesting mental health treatment and that burden likely would shift
to the VA as personnel left the service.
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