Baghdad trip raises concerns for Murray

After touring Baghdad this week and talking with ground troops and commanders, Sen. Patty Murray said she has some of the same concerns she had when voting against a United States-led war in Iraq more than two years ago.

The Iraqi people are in poverty, she said. Much of the country is in shambles and reconstruction is nearly impossible because of security concerns. The United States has no exit strategy.

But American troops have a responsibility to stay and complete the job, Murray said.

“It’s a time of a lot of hope and opportunity, but incredible obstacles,” she said in a telephone press conference during a stop in Tbilisi, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Murray and six other senators left last weekend, making stops in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Kuwait before flying into the Baghdad airport by military transport and taking a helicopter into the city, flying low over “tremendous devastation and poverty,” she said.

One of the highlights, she said, was having dinner on Monday night in Kuwait with Washington National Guard troops who are returning from a year of duty in Iraq. Murray said she passed out jerseys donated by Gonzaga and the University of Washington, the Sonics and the Mariners to members of the 81st Combat Brigade, and talked to them about their deployment.

“They’ve fought hard and given up a lot,” she said.

Some soldiers are concerned that they will return to their families and jobs at home, but be called up by the state to fight forest fires this summer because of the drought.

They didn’t suggest they wouldn’t report for firefighting. “They were concerned it would be hard on their families, jobs and schooling,” said Murray, adding she’ll talk to Gov. Christine Gregoire to suggest the state make sure it does not “overdo what we ask them to do.”

The senators met with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders who are working on Iraq’s new constitution, and Murray said they emphasized concerns that Iraqi women be given full rights and representation in the new government.

The type of government Iraq would set up was one of the many things the United States did not think about before it went to war, Murray said. “We’re really doing nation-building,” she said.

Until a new government is set up and an Iraqi police force is in place to provide security for ongoing reconstruction projects, Murray said it’s too early to say whether the war was worth it.

“I don’t think we can answer that question today,” she said.

The congressional delegation plans to meet later this week with leaders in the republic of Georgia, and later with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and other leaders of the democratic movement in that country. They’ll wrap up the trip with defense discussions with French and NATO officials in Paris.