Us surge working in iraq

BY DAVID LERMAN August 16, 2007 WASHINGTON To hear Virginia Rep. Thelma Drake tell it, the buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq is making good progress in securing the country and combating terrorists."We heard repeatedly that the surge is working," Drake said Wednesday, after returning from a weeklong trip to the Middle East that included a day in Iraq."We are the ones on the offensive now. Al-Qaida is on the defensive. Iraqi security forces are truly standing up."Illinois Rep. Janice Schakowsky, who accompanied Drake on the trip, reached the opposite conclusion."I believe overall the surge is a failure," said Schakowsky, a Chicago liberal who co-founded the Out of Iraq caucus in the House of Representatives. "What I came away with was that Iraq was a huge distraction from the real war on terror."The conflicting conclusions from lawmakers who traveled together in Iraq underscore how perceptions of the war have crystallized among Washington politicians. Rather than offering new insights, congressional "fact-finding" trips appear mostly to reinforce existing views.And those views often divide along party lines. Drake is a Republican, Schakowsky a Democrat.Schakowsky, in a conference call with reporters, acknowledged the deep divide among the traveling six-member House delegation made up of four Republicans and two Democrats."Drake, a conservative from Norfolk who has been a stalwart defender of President Bush's Iraq policy, struggled to explain the divergent views of her colleagues."Maybe people see what they want to see," she said.Lawmakers had intended to visit the al-Anbar province in western Iraq, where the military has pointed to success recently in combating al-Qaida, but the trip was cut short when the House stayed in session longer than planned.In Baghdad, the delegation met with Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. The trip also included a visit with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurdish leader.Drake argued that security in Iraq has improved since the troop surge, pointing to a meeting the delegation had with four local sheiks - two Sunni and two Shiite - in a northern part of Baghdad. American troops, working with local sheiks, rid the neighborhood of insurgents, she said."These sheiks could not say enough about how thankful they were to America," Drake said. "They were very clear to me they were working together."Schakowsky acknowledged that security might be improving in some neighborhoods. But she said the surge has failed to provide the conditions, as hoped, for a political reconciliation among Iraq's warring factions.