Chambliss reports upbeat mood in Iraq

Published 11:17 pm Friday, December 16, 2005

The excitement in Iraq was palpable during Thursday’s national election, says U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

“As we walked down the street, (Iraqi voters) would engage us in conversation. They would wave. They would give you a thumbs up. As we walked into the polling place, one individual said, ‘Tell Mr. Bush how much we appreciate him,’” Chambliss said Friday in a call with reporters.

Chambliss was one of four senators allowed into the country as election observers certified by Iraqi election officials.

“It was a very, very interesting trip on what was a historic day,” he said.

One polling place the senators visited was at Hillah, a town south of Baghdad.

Chambliss said Hillah had been the scene of much violence as recently as a few weeks ago. But on Election Day, it, like the rest of the country, was fairly peaceful.

“We did not have a single major incident to occur,” he said.

Chambliss said much of the credit for the security had to go to the Iraqi police.

“That group was in charge of security. That’s who we saw when we got out of our vehicle and began walking down the street to the polling place,” he said.

Chambliss noted that he didn’t see any American troops there.

He said American officials in Iraq updated the group on the continuing training of Iraqi military and security personnel.

“We continue to make progress. We have about 30 battalions, which is 750 men each, fully trained, fully equipped and combat ready. We’ve got an additional 75,000-100,000 troops that are trained, but I wouldn’t put them in the category of battle-tested and ready,” he said.

Chambliss said the goal is to have 200,000 troops trained and ready by the end of 2006, and officials assured him they are on track to meet that goal.

Despite their performance Thursday, Chambliss said the Iraqi police still aren’t quite up to the standards of the Iraqi military, but American trainers are doing a better job of selecting and training those forces, and their quality is improving.

Chambliss said the group took the opportunity to talk to Sunni Arabs about the election. The Sunnis dominated the government during Saddam Hussein’s rule, and the insurgency the United States has been battling in Iraq has been largely Sunni Arabs.

But Chambliss said the Sunnis they spoke with were enthusiastic about the election.

Chambliss said the trip concluded with “some very frank conversation” with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and other top officials.

“We’ve got to make sure that we have a unified Iraq at the end of the day. We don’t need to come up with a constitution that shuts out the Sunnis just because they are a minority. We don’t need to think we are going to proceed forward without the dismantling of the militia that is in place over there,” he said.

Chambliss said Iraqis of all stripes were very clear about their feelings on the American troops stationed there.

“If you ask them the question ‘Do you want the Americans to leave?’ they would say ‘Sure.’ But if you ask them ‘Do you want the Americans to leave today?’ they say ‘No,’” he said.