{"id":2133,"date":"2004-07-15T12:28:19","date_gmt":"2004-07-15T17:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2133.html"},"modified":"2004-07-15T12:28:19","modified_gmt":"2004-07-15T17:28:19","slug":"about-all-that-progress-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/about-all-that-progress-in-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"About all that progress in Iraq…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iraq is still, as Jon Stewart says<\/a>, a giant Mess O’ Potamia. Violence<\/a> is still threatening national stability and our already tiny “coalition” will soon be even smaller<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s even reached the point that the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), doesn’t want members of Congress traveling to the country anymore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Roberts also thinks members of Congress should think twice before going to Iraq for a firsthand look at the situation there. <\/p>\n

“I’m not saying that members of Congress shouldn’t go, but the situation is so dicey right now that it’s not only yourself that you endanger. \u2026 It takes at least 50 to 100 of our armed forces folks to make sure you’re secure — times how many members are there — and you’re putting them at risk, too.<\/p>\n

“So the mission has to be very carefully thought out and has to be justified. Just think what the situation would be if a terrorist group were able to kidnap a member of Congress and show that person on television.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe the congressional trips are more about politics than I realize, but I always found it encouraging when lawmakers could return home and report on the first-hand progress (or lack thereof) they found when they traveled to Iraq.<\/p>\n

Obviously, if it’s unsafe and taxes military personnel too much, Roberts is right and members of Congress shouldn’t make the visit. But what does that tell us about Iraq’s stability if the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee doesn’t even want lawmakers to make the trip?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iraq is still, as Jon Stewart says, a giant Mess O’ Potamia. Violence is still threatening national stability and our already tiny “coalition” will soon be even smaller. It’s even reached the point that the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), doesn’t want members of Congress traveling to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}