Loebsack Visits Iraq: Troops Doing Great Job, But Overextended

Loebsack Visits Iraq: Troops Doing Great Job, But Overextended

This past weekend, freshman Iowa Congressman Dave Loebsack took his second trip to Iraq since his election last year. Speaking with Iowa Independent from his Washington office Tuesday, the Mount Vernon Democrat said, while the troops are doing a great job, they are overextended and need to come home as soon as possible, with withdrawal complete within a year.

Loebsack, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, led a four member delegation that visited Baghdad, Ramadi and Balad in Iraq, Kuwait and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. His traveling partners were fellow freshman Democrat John Hall of New York (best known as former front man for the rock band Orleans) and Republicans Tom Cole of Oklahoma (who heads the GOP congressional campaign committee) and Ric Keller of Florida.

My conversation with Loebsack:

Deeth: How thin are we stretched over there?

Loebsack: That is part of the problem, isn’t it? We have about 160, 170,000 troops there. What’s happened, as you know, is our involvement in Iraq has really made us less safe at home, it’s made us less able to respond to threats that may arise in other parts of the world, and obviously with the National Guard, the 833rd out of Ottumwa, what’s happened is the war in Iraq means we’ve got a shortage of equipment, in Iowa we’re probably at 38-40% of capacity, and it makes us less capable of responding to natural disasters should they occur in Iowa. And those troops that are there, they have a very short amount of time btw deployments, about 14 months is all. And now they’re redeployed and it’s been very difficult for them.

Deeth: fatigue issues and back home issues.

Loebsack. Yeah. They’re overstretched, there’s no doubt about it, and some of them made that very clear.

Deeth: Do you really get a lot of chance to talk to rank and file troops on a trip like this?

Loebsack: As a matter of fact I do. I had lunch with some of these folks. One of them was Gabe Whitaker, (State Rep.) John Whitaker’s son, and I’ve known Gabe for some time. Not only that, but at the Embassy, and even out at Ramadi, I got to meet a number of troops out there from Iowa, and it could be because I was the leader of the congressional delegation that a number of them just happened to turn up, I don’t know that for a fact but something along those lines. It was great seeing some folks from Iowa City, from Sioux City. And I got to talk to people about the logistics issues, when we actually make the decision to disengage, how long will it take. As you know, John, all along I’ve been in favor of beginning the disengagement immediately. Not getting everybody out immediately, but beginning the disengagement immediately with the goal of getting out over the course of the next 12 months. That might be difficult, because we’ve got to do this safely and responsibly.

Deeth: So what’s the holdup? Is it really the logistics, the domestic politics here, Iraqi readiness?

Loebsack: The fact of the matter is the troops are doing a fantastic job in Iraq for the United States. But it‘s the Iraqi politicians who are not really stepping up to the plate to the extent which they need to be. That’s the key to this, the Iraqis stepping up to the plate and engaging the political reconciliation in a productive way. Obviously I’m not seeing that to the extent which we need to do it. And it’s making us less safe at home and it’s making us overstretched, obviously, around the world. And my position remains the same. We need to begin disengagement immediately; the goal has to be to get us out over the course of the next 12 months.

Deeth: How are the troops and the commanders reacting toward the increasingly bellicose rhetoric about Iran, about bringing something else into all this?

Loebsack: You know what, we didn’t talk about those issues when I talked to the troops and the commanders. Although, it did come up with General Petraeus, and of course he is concerned about Iranian influence in Iraq. But we talked about home issues with the troops, we talked about their mission and that sort of thing, we didn’t talk about Iran.

Deeth: They were focused on the task at hand.

Loebsack: That’s exactly right.

Deeth: Now, what are the troops saying or thinking about the “support the troops” rhetoric or how the anti-war movement is going back here?

Loebsack: They’re not talking about any of that. They’ve got a mission to do and I think it’s really hard for us, unless we’re there, what they go through every day. They go out on patrols, the 833rd is an engineering group and they go out and deal with IEDs. You know, this is what they’re concerned about.

I brought care packages and letters from students, calling cards so they can call home from people in the district, and we talked about that, they were just really happy to get those gifts.

Deeth: Good. Now, is there really any chance politically that we’re going to start coming home before January 20th of `09?

Loebsack: I can’t say, John. All I can say is I’m going to continue to push as hard as I can to make sure that happens. That’s my job here, that’s what the people of America want us to do. Definitely that’s what the vast majority of the people of the 2nd District want me to do. And I’m going to continue to do that to the best of my ability.

Deeth: You stopped at the hospital (Landstuhl Regional Medical Center) in Germany, was that on the way our or the way back?

Loebsack: On the way out. That was a big part of what I was doing, too, looking at the medical system. In Balad, that’s where it all begins. It begins on the battlefield, obviously, when a troop is injured. Then they bring him or her via medevac helicopter. And we went to the helicopter pad at Balad, went through the ER, and went through all the stages of their care. Sometimes they go right back to their units. Others then if they need help and they need it quickly, they go on to Landstuhl, which is right near the Rammstein Air Base. And I got to visit that hospital and they’re there for not very long, actually. The success rate is fantastic. And they’re then either sent back to Iraq, or they’re sent on to Walter Reed or Bethesda, somewhere here in the United States. And the whole point is to provide the critical health care that is necessary for the long-term recovery of these folks.

One other thing I should mention. I found out, and I didn’t realize this before I left, that everyone who leaves Iraq, whether they’ve been subject to an IED explosion or not, is screened for traumatic brain injury (TBI). This is really fantastic, because we’re seeing so many people who don’t show the effects of that there in Iraq, even those who are in explosions and they get rattled around in a Humvee or an MRAP or something. On the surface, it looks like they’re doing fine, but then they come back here and they have a lot of problems and they have TBIs. And that’s connected also to the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that is manifested oftentimes much later down the line. And we’re going to be seeing a lot more of that as you might imagine.

Deeth: A lot of long-term implications for that.

Loebsack: Also we’re seeing some Vietnam veterans who are manifesting PTSD because they are watching on the news or they’re talking to or seeing Iraq war vets having the same problems. So it’s amazing what’s happening. And we’re doing everything we can obviously to treat them. On the Armed Services Committee my goal in terms of oversight is to make sure we’re doing the best we can for these folks. I’m a cosponsor of a number of bills that continue this screening for TBI and PTSD once the troops get home.