Rep. Jonathon Paton led a tour for a handful of US Senators in Iraq. I like this picture of Rep. Paton and Senator McCain and I bet that both of them use it in their next campaign.
Here are Paton's comments on the tour.
I returned from Fallujah in time to see Sen. McCain who visited Baghdad today. I got a chance to ride to the Al Faw Palace with him. It is surrounded by a beautiful lake, which is interesting because it is this small island of beauty surrounded by wreckage everywhere. I told him that Saddam used the lake to drown over 700 opponents of the regime. It is one of the strange quirks of the country that even the beautiful things we have seen are tinged with something dark. He had Sen. Susan Collins, Lindsay Graham, Joe Lieberman and John Thune with him. It was interesting to see them under the current circumstances.
They met with LTG Chirelli (sp?) and I got the chance to sit in on the meetings. The comments about the war were fascinating. It felt like I was a part of a historical moment by being in that brief. They asked the two 3-stars some tough questions and got some blunt and honest answers back. The most important questions, however, came from Lieberman. He asked about Al Qaeda. The reality, he was told, is that Al Qaeda is less and less of a problem. It is the sectarian violence, principally these Shia militias that are causing the violence. Iran's actions in arming them and training them through Hezbollah, along with corruption and/or complicity in the Iraqi government are becoming an ever greater factor in the problems here.
I felt like Dante's tour guide in the inferno, pointing out the significance of this piece of rubble or that. I got to show Sen. Collins Saddam's throne. She seemed to enjoy seeing the throne (it's become sort of the favorite tourist picture at Camp Victory). I liked talking to her the most. She was quiet but very thoughtful. She didn't say much during the brief, but after it was over she leaned in towards me and asked, "what do you need more of here?" Her whisper kind of hung there in the air while I thought about it. "You mean more than booze and good cigars?" She smiled and nodded. I thought back to my trip to Fallujah with the marines and the trips I had hitched a ride alongside Al Qaeda detainees on what I call "Con-Air" flights. I thought of mortar attacks and small arms fire I had experienced. I thought of the underlying difficulty with every operational element I have been a part of since I got here -- whether it had to do with air transport, intelligence analysis or the guys pulling the trigger in the field. I had the feeling that what I said might actually make a difference some where, at some point (or maybe I'm just fooling myself) so I just told her the honest truth as I saw it at the time: "We need more troops, especially here in Baghdad."
The other soldiers I am with in some of the pictures are of my OIC MAJ Magrass (for the non-military people that means my boss) and our S-6 MAJ Cathcart (he's in charge of Communications).
Jonathan
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