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Iraq is improving, Wittman reports

New Congressman makes first trip to Iraq

BY EMILY BATTLE

Date published: 1/9/2008

BY EMILY BATTLE

From a hotel in Baghdad's Green Zone yesterday, newly elected Rep. Rob Wittman expressed optimism about the security situation in Iraq in a town-meeting-style conference call with constituents.

Since Sunday, Wittman, a Republican from Westmoreland County, has been traveling in Jordan and Iraq with Congressmen Stephen Lynch (D--Mass.) and Peter Welch (D--Vermont).

Wittman said he would be traveling to Beirut today, and would make a stop in France to talk with leaders there before returning home on Friday.

Welch and Lynch have been to Iraq a combined total of 10 times, and Wittman said they've been able to offer him perspective on how the situation has changed over the course of their journeys.

"They have told me things have improved significantly," he said.

Asked by one constituent whether he "had heard anything go 'boom' lately," Wittman said, "It's been fairly quiet."

In briefings yesterday, Wittman said he was told by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker that American and Iraqi casualties were declining, that more and more areas were being secured and that reconstruction efforts were taking root.

He visited the city of Ramadi, in Iraq's Anbar Province, where he met with the provincial governor.

"Schools are open, businesses are open. Six months ago, that was not happening there," Wittman said. "Ramadi was a war zone."

Fredericksburg resident George Taylor, a retired Air Force officer, cut to the chase.

"When do you see that we can get completely out of the country?" he asked.

Wittman admitted he had no way to answer that question definitively, but he did say that as more areas of Iraq become secure, the local government can take charge, allowing U.S. forces to withdraw.

"It we enjoy the same level of success [elsewhere] in applying the same principles used in Anbar, then in the next several years we ought to have significant troop reductions."

It was Wittman's first "tele-town hall" meeting since being elected to the First District seat in Congress in a Dec. 11 special election. Wittman is finishing the last year of the term of Rep. Jo Ann Davis, who died in October of breast cancer.

The call was facilitated by a telephone system that placed calls to around 67,000 households in the First District over the course of yesterday's hour-long "meeting," according to Wittman spokesman Trainor Walsh.

Walsh said around 7,600 people joined in the call at some point during the discussion.

"I plan to do this quite often to make sure I'm listening to folks in the district," Wittman said.

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Date published: 1/9/2008