Soldiers question Sen. Craig

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, a staunch supporter of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, had just shaken hands with 10 Idaho National Guard soldiers who recently learned they are among the biggest deployment of Idaho citizen-soldiers since 1941.

The Thursday afternoon session at the 116th Engineer Battalion Armory near Post Falls wasn’t the best setting for easy discussion. The uniformed soldiers and three women in civilian dress were a small group in a big room as they sat in a line at one of several long tables.

But Craig put on a warm smile and told them he was humbled last fall during his visit to American troops in Iraq.

“I greatly appreciate the chance to say hello to you,” the senator said. He perched his tall frame on the hard edge of another table and added:

“Do you have questions? Speak most frankly with me.”

Jenni Robinson piped right up and told Craig that Guard members and their families here were having a tough time finding local primary care physicians who would accept patients under the military health plan.

Craig and two of his local staffers — state director Sandy Patano and regional director John Martin — quickly vowed to look into the situation. Craig said he would work with Gov. Dirk Kempthorne who, the soldiers told him, also is aware of the problem.

Craig also said he is working on language in an appropriations bill that would boost the payments to physicians. The military health plan has a low reimbursement rate, he said.

“It’s a matter of payment, to be blunt and honest about it,” Craig said.

Col. Steve Knutzen, commander of the 116th, said the health-care issue is one of several particularly close to home among the local Guard members, who are scheduled to leave for Texas in about a month for training and who could be in Iraq for a year’s deployment by October.

About 250 Guard members from North Idaho are expected to be among those fighting in Iraq in the fall.

“They are not too worried about themselves. But they are worried about health care and other issues of dealing with their families when they are not here,” Knutzen said.

Jenni Robinson and her husband, Capt. Ryan Robinson, have two children. He is a local bank manager who will command one of the 116th’s companies in Iraq. Ryan Robinson told Craig he’s not just worried about his own kids, but helping provide health care for more than 120 families in his unit.

Craig said his office will help. “You deserve an answer,” he said. “We will leverage as hard as we can. If we can keep the home front stable in your absence, it will be helpful.”

During a meeting with Spokesman-Review staffers just before going to the armory, Craig said he has supported President Bush on the war from the very beginning, said he still supports the president’s policies now and, of the steep increase in military and Homeland Security funding, said: “Priorities have shifted.”

Craig said he believes Bush had a plan in place for rebuilding Iraq after the military victory over Saddam Hussein’s forces and, he said, it is “training of Iraqi citizens and ex-military and putting them back in power, and that is what we are doing.”

He said he hopes the new government in Iraq “will be a representative form of government, one that is stable and respecting of human rights.”

Craig discounted perceptions that the United States presence in Iraq is seen as an imperialist or occupying force.

Although the U.S. has taken on the role of lone superpower in the aftermath of the Cold War, Craig said America is not the Roman Empire, “We do not believe in holding territory. We want access to economies.”

Asked if declaring a war on “terror” or on what he called a “fundamentalist Islamicist ideology,” only serves to create the very enemies the country ends up fighting, Craig said “That’s the right question to ask. But as for what the answer is …”

Craig said he struggles with the decision to send Idaho’s guard units to Iraq. “It’s a very tough call for me. I want them to be home,” he said, but added that he also wants a strong, stable and free society.

At the armory, he told the small group of soldiers “I want you to know how humbled I am by what you are doing. This is not just a war. There is a great deal more to it. We are there to demonstrate our resolve as a country.”