Bradley Visits IRAQ, Talks With NH Troops
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.) returned to the capital Tuesday night from a six-day trip to Iraq, where he met with New Hampshire troops and Iraqi police officers and discussed their work to rebuild the country and heal the wounds of the country’s violent past.
Bradley said soldiers from New Hampshire urged him to ask Americans to continue to support the troops as they work to rebuild Iraq.
The New Hampshire troops “feel that they’re making a difference, that they’re making progress,” Bradley said in a telephone press conference Wednesday from his Capitol Hill office. “That isn’t to say that there aren’t challenges and obstacles, but these kids are capable of meeting challenges and obstacles.
“But they want to know that they have the fortitude and the backbone at home to support their efforts because they’ll get the job done if we continue to support their efforts.”
Bradley backed the Bush administration’s plans to increase the use of Iraqi police and military forces.
“I think that it’s not necessary to send more American troops today,” he said. “What is necessary is to get more of the civilian defense force of Iraqis, the Iraqi policemen, border guards and a newly constituted army so that these people, the Iraqis, whose country it is, are actually doing the security and protection work in their country.á
“The Iraqi people are going to be much more comfortable with their own police force doing the intelligence and having us as support,” rather than the other way around, he said.
Bradley said the American soldiers and Iraqi police told him that most Iraqis supported the American invasion.
“They felt that the vast majority of Iraqis that they were dealing with are happy that we’re there,” Bradley said. “There are some that are neutral and then, clearly, there are some that oppose our presence. And for the most part, these are either foreign infiltrators — the type of people that crash jetliners into tall buildings — and the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime.”
There has been no proof that Iraq played any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, though both the Bush administration and its critics say terrorists now are gathering in Iraq.
Bradley acknowledged that those loyal to former Iraqi President Hussein continued to launch as many as 35 attacks a day on coalition forces.
Bradley said that both American soldiers and Iraqi police forces worked under dangerous conditions – he was in a C-130 plane heading from Kuwait to Tikrit, Iraq, when an American helicopter was downed Sunday, leaving 15 dead — but that the Iraqis in particular were focused on the greater goal of rebuilding.
“They’re thankful for the fact that America has liberated their country, giving them the opportunity to rebuild it,” Bradley said. “And they are willing to fight and die for the opportunity to rebuild their country, and that was pretty heartwarming for me to hear the Iraqi people say that.”
Bradley, however, spent each night of his trip in Kuwait, flying back and forth between the neighboring countries every day for security reasons, said his spokesman, T.J. Crawford.
In Kuwait, Bradley met with representatives of the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and visited Camp Wolf, where American troops stop before returning to the United States for 15-day breaks.
“It is clearly a morale booster, and I was glad to see that our troops are getting this opportunity,” Bradley wrote in e-mail update to reporters during his trip.
It was during his flights back to Kuwait that Bradley saw lights on in Iraqi homes. During a briefing with L. Paul Bremer, the American overseeing Iraqi reconstruction, Bradley learned that electricity had been restored to pre-war levels.
Bradley said he got a first-hand look at evidence of torture under Hussein’s regime when he toured the Abu Gharib prison, where approximately 80,000 Iraqis were tortured and killed. Bradley said he saw the torture chambers and victims’ “disturbing” final messages on the walls of the execution room.
He also viewed a dramatic re-enactment of an execution. “Even as I describe it now, it is sickening. It’s disgusting and á I was left speechless,” he said.
