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Pawlenty wraps up Iraqi visit
by Laura McCallum, Minnesota Public Radio
February 11, 2004

Gov. Pawlenty visited with Minnesota troops in Baghdad Wednesday. (Photo courtesy of Gov. Pawlenty's office)

Gov. Tim Pawlenty wrapped up a two-day trip to Iraq Wednesday. Pawlenty and five other governors spent a second day in Baghdad at the invitation of the Bush administration. Pawlenty says he leaves Iraq convinced that President Bush was right to go to war against Saddam Hussein's regime.

St. Paul, Minn. — Foggy weather disrupted the scheduled plans for day two of Pawlenty's visit to Iraq. The governors had planned to take a helicopter trip outside of Baghdad to tour a women's center and meet with university officials. Instead, the governors spent a second day in Baghdad.

Pawlenty says the group was briefed on efforts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, saw one of Saddam Hussein's larger palaces and had lunch and dinner with the troops. Pawlenty says he supported President Bush's decision to go to war, and continues to support the mission in Iraq.

"You have to finish the job here. If we turn and cut and run now and don't finish the job, that sends a terrible message to many people in Iraq who thought we didn't finish the job in '91," says Pawlenty.

	The streets of Baghdad

Pawlenty says as the governors' plane was leaving the Baghdad airport for Amman, Jordan, they saw tracer fire in the distance, just as they had seen the day before. He says the tracer fire wasn't aimed at the governors' plane, and didn't appear to be a threat, but he says the pilots made evasive maneuvers.

"The take-off and landing under these conditions is quite dramatic," Pawlenty says. "They do this -- almost a very dramatic spiral down and spiral up, at kind of an incline -- that I've never experienced anything close to on a commercial flight."

Pawlenty says he met several Minnesota soldiers during his trip, and he praised their dedication. He says he gave Minnesota lapel pins and Pearson's Salted Nut Rolls to some of the soldiers he met.

While Pawlenty was part of the first group of governors to visit Iraq at the invitation of the Defense Department, several members of Minnesota's congressional delegation have visited the country since the war.

Iraq's a war zone, it's not a public relations zone. - U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, DFL-Minn.

DFL Rep. Betty McCollum traveled to Iraq in October. McCollum serves on the International Relations Committee, and says she thinks it's important for members of Congress to visit the country. She doesn't see the importance of sending governors there.

"Iraq's a war zone, it's not a public relations zone," she says.

McCollum says the Bush administration is using Pawlenty and others who supported the war to try to get positive media coverage of what's happening in the country. McCollum opposed the decision to go to war in Iraq, and says she continues to have concerns about the safety of troops and the cost of reconstruction.

"This was a war with no plan, this was a war that did not need to take place," says McCollum. "We need to be concentrated on the frontline in the war on terrorism, which was Afghanistan, which we're leaving at risk because we have our troops spread so thin. So thin, in fact, I guess that they're doing a PR job now with the governors to send more National Guard troops over."

Political observers say the Bush administration is concerned about the coverage of post-war Iraq. Political scientist Steven Schier from Carleton College in Northfield says governors get a lot of media attention when they travel, more so than members of Congress. He says the Bush administration wants to bypass the national newspapers and television networks, and get local media coverage of Iraq. He says some of the governors chosen by the White House for the trip are from states important to Bush's re-election campaign this year.

"Oregon is a state that's up for grabs, Bush lost that by only 7,000 votes. He lost Minnesota by only 2 percent. Louisiana's an important southern state with a new Democratic governor, the other states are not so obviously political picks," says Schier.

Pawlenty says he doesn't know if he was chosen for political reasons. He says there are many swing states around the country whose governors weren't selected for the trip. A Department of Defense spokesman says the governors were chosen for geographic and partisan balance. Four are Republicans, two are Democrats.

The governors return to Washington D.C. for a planned meeting with President Bush Friday morning. Pawlenty will return to Minnesota later that day.

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