Cape Cod Online - Rep. Keating Tours War Zone

Press Release

By Patrick Cassidy

The situations in Iraq and Afghanistan may be improving, but as U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., learned during his first trip to the region last week, it is still a dangerous place to live in and to visit.

A day after visiting Camp Victory, the congressional delegation Keating was traveling with learned that five U.S. soldiers at the camp, located on the edge of Baghdad, had been killed by a rocket-propelled explosive. The same morning they heard news of the soldiers' deaths -- the most deadly incident for American forces in Iraq in two years -- a convoy of U.S. State Department sport utility vehicles was heavily damaged by an improvised explosive device within earshot of where Keating and his four Republican colleagues were meeting with military and State Department officials.

"It is a bad neighborhood," Keating said during a telephone interview Sunday, the day after he arrived, jet-lagged, back in the U.S. The eight-day whirlwind tour took Keating, who represents Cape Cod, the Islands and the South Shore, and his Republican counterparts to Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Germany. The delegation got little sleep in traveling by plane, Blackhawk and Osprey helicopters and convoy to meet with U.S. and foreign officials, Keating said.

Pakistan's dilemma
Keating was on the fact-finding mission because of his position on the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees.The delegation was the first of its kind to visit Pakistan since Osama bin Laden's death, and members met with the country's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gillani."While they've made their sacrifices in fighting some of the terrorists there are other terrorist organizations they have actual ties to," Keating said of the Pakistan government. "I look at it as a moral dilemma."

If the Pakistanis reduced their support for organizations that are actively aiding groups fighting American troops in Afghanistan they could speed up the timetable for a full withdrawal of U.S. forces there, he said.

And while Gillani used the delegation's visit as an opportunity to bolster a U.S. and Pakistani trade agreement, Keating questioned whether the pact is in the best interest of the U.S. Only 2 percent of Pakistanis pay taxes, Keating said, adding that such a model for funding the country's needs is unsustainable. He added that parts of the U.S. where the textile industry is important would likely be hurt by the trade agreement.

Cause for hope
Despite the violence in Iraq, Keating saw reasons for hope there.American troops are playing more of a supportive role in counterterrorism efforts, with Iraqi police and military increasingly taking the lead, he said.

In other parts of the Middle East, protests that are part of the so-called Arab spring have often called for the overthrow of governments; but that is not the case in Iraq for the most part, the freshman congressman said.

The delegation was able to speak with U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, as well as some of the country's people in a small marketplace in the Helmand province, an area that saw intense military action over the past few years.

"It's not like Quincy Market," Keating said. Afghans at the market were set up in basic wooden structures and less interested in talking politics or sharing information about their lives than they were in selling goods to the visiting U.S. lawmakers.

One man Keating met said he served alongside U.S. soldiers for his own self-interest."He's doing this because he wants a country and he wants his kids to have a chance in life," Keating said, adding that he takes such an attitude as a good sign.

Afghanistan was starting from a far more difficult position than Iraq, Keating said. Police in the country being trained by Canadians, Italians and other foreign forces needed assistance with the most basic skills, he said.

When training first started there, only 15 percent of the Afghan police forces could read and write, Keating said."How could they understand the rule of law when they couldn't read?" he said. Now 50 percent of the police can read and write, he said.

poignant reminder
The most memorable part of the trip came during a ceremony to send the body of a recently killed U.S. soldier home, Keating said.

"To be part of that certainly brought back in the most concrete terms the sacrifice we are making as a country," he said.

Stabilizing the economies, infrastructure and rule of law in the countries he visited is important for the U.S., which is spending $1 million annually for each soldier in a combat setting, Keating said.

Now that he has been there, Keating said, he will be better able to act and vote on issues related to conflicts in these countries, he said.

"I'm in a better position to understand in the short and the long range what those decisions should be," he said.

More than 36,000 U.S. troops have been killed or wounded fighting in Iraq, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. There have been more than 13,000 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan.

A day after visiting Camp Victory, the congressional delegation Keating was traveling with learned that five U.S. soldiers at the camp, located on the edge of Baghdad, had been killed by a rocket-propelled explosive. The same morning they heard news of the soldiers' deaths -- the most deadly incident for American forces in Iraq in two years -- a convoy of U.S. State Department sport utility vehicles was heavily damaged by an improvised explosive device within earshot of where Keating and his four Republican colleagues were meeting with military and State Department officials.

Source