Virginia state lawmakers travel to Iraq more than presidential hopeful Obama

WASHINGTON — As Barack Obama met with top military commanders in Iraq Monday, Virginia lawmakers, who have made a combined 31 trips to the war torn country, were divided over the value of such visits.
Some said the trips provided a better understanding of the U.S. military effort in Iraq, while others called them useless public relations exercises.
“It was extraordinarily important to understand from the military leaders — and the troops’ point of view — what the challenges were and how they felt the war was going,” said Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who visited Iraq within three months of taking office this year.
Rep. Robert Scott, D-3rd, disagreed, arguing that lawmakers traveling in a tight security bubble are denied an accurate picture of the war.
“What you get is people under orders to tell you what the administration wants them to tell you,” said Scott, who has not visited Iraq. “I can get that here.”
Obama visited Afghanistan last weekend and Iraq on Monday, where he met with General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The stop in Iraq was Obama’s second since joining the Senate in 2004. Sen. James Webb, D-Va., a member of the Armed Services Committee, has visited the country once since his election in 2006.
Last week, Webb defended Obama’s infrequent travel to the region, which had become the subject of Republican attacks.
“I don’t think Franklin Roosevelt had to go to France in order to understand what was going on in World War II,” Webb said on MSNBC. “In some cases it can help when one goes to these places, and in other cases it can be a very narrow, limited experience.”
Virginia’s senior senator, Republican John Warner, who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee when the war began, clearly values seeing the country up close. He has visited Iraq 10 times since 2003, his office said.
While some politicians have used their trips to Iraq to harden their views about the war, others like Warner have returned with a completely new stance about military strategies.
An initial supporter of the Bush administration’s plan to increase troop levels, Warner came home from Iraq in August 2007 and urged the president to begin withdrawing troops by the end of that year.
Rep. Jim Moran, D-8th, who has traveled to Iraq three times, said the first trips lawmakers take there can be useless.
“It’s a dog and pony show,” Moran said. “In large part it’s a perfunctory exercise that makes the members feel important and enables them to project to their constituents that they are informed.”
But after the first visit, he said, he and other lawmakers know what to look for and can ask more pointed questions.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been to Iraq eight times since 2003.
With Republicans ridiculing Obama for not having been to Iraq since January 2006, Moran said, Obama had to make the trip, if only for symbolism.
But several lawmakers said they pulled more than symbolic value from their visits.
“When you see it and feel it and touch it and smell it,” you understand the country better, said Rep. Frank Wolf, R-10th, who has visited Iraq four times.
Wolf said he often traveled with non-governmental organizations to see as complete a picture as possible in war and poverty-stricken counties, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
Neil Simon is a correspondent with Media General’s Washington bureau.