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A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including New York senator Hillary Clinton, spent three days in Afghanistan and Iraq before stopping at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center Monday to assess that facility’s care of wounded servicemembers.
What we’ve seen here is beyond positive,” Senator Clinton said. “Democrats or Republicans alike have one thing in common; we all want to do right by our men and women in uniform. They are getting the best care here that one could imagine.”
The former first lady was joined by Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and New York Congressman John McHugh on the overseas trip, meeting with U.S. military personnel as well as Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan decision makers prior to the final stop in Germany. Senators Clinton and Bayh are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee while Congressman McHugh is a ranking minority member of the House Armed Services Committee. They were interested in seeing first-hand what takes place on a daily basis in the Middle East and Asia fighting sectors.
Congressman McHugh, an intelligence expert and seven-term representative, said the trip was about exploring aspects involved with American and coalition forces’ continuation of current war pursuits.
***image1***““They are kind of different theaters, in a lot of ways,” he said. “Afghanistan is less stable right now, while Iraq has people in place who say they are ready to take back over their own country. We are training them but there comes a time for the Iraqis to step up and make decisions on their own.”
Senators Clinton and Bayh concurred that Afghanistan presents as daunting an issue as the more-visible conflict in Iraq.
“Afghanistan is teetering,” Senator Bayh said. “A lot must happen there for it to be stabilized.”
Congressman McHugh said that while fighting was at a lull now because of cold weather, activity could be expected to pick up in coming months.
“(Coalition military leaders) say they expect a new offensive in the spring,” he said. “It’s a NATO mission and there are many elements involved. The troops we talked to feel that the missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan can be accomplished. ‘Let us finish this,’ they said. ‘It’s critical.’ And that’s where we’re at.”
The group was led through the LRMC intensive care unit and visited with injured patients in three of the hospital’s wards. They returned to Ramstein and toured the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility before heading back to the States. The group was to brief other members of Congress and the Senate on their findings from the trip, as debate rages among U.S. lawmakers about staying the course.
The congressional delegation reported encountering the same strong feelings from Soldiers downrange as they did with injured troops at LRMC. The lawmakers were told by most servicemembers they talked to that a clearly defined mission plan, backed by adequate force strength, were all that was needed for success.
“The political process is a slow process,” said Sgt. Kenneth Gibson, an injured American Soldier who spoke with the congressional group at LRMC. “We ask the Iraqis to do things quickly and people in America want them to be able to stand up and defend their country. They want the Iraqis to show us they are serious.
“But with so much corruption among those who live there, it takes a long time to make them ready to do that. If we pull out now, we will just have to go back later and it will be worse then than it is now.”
