News-Info-Alerts

Re: Speicher, Rebuilding Focus of Iraq Trip

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: June 29, 2003

"Roberts to focus on security on trip to Iraq
BY ALAN BJERGA Eagle Washington bureau

WASHINGTON - Sen. Pat Roberts is going to Iraq early next week.

Roberts, chairman of the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence, will accompany seven members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on a trip to Baghdad, Basra and southern Iraq. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, will also make the trip.

"We're going to focus on the current security situation (for U.S. forces) and the overall rebuilding effort" in Iraq, Roberts said, along with the ongoing search for weapons of mass destruction and for missing Gulf War pilot Scott Speicher, a special interest for Roberts.

For security reasons, Roberts did not offer details about where he would be and when. Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said the group would spend one day each in Baghdad and Basra and nights in Kuwait before returning to United States by July 4.

"It's not the safest" congressional trip, said Roberts, who traveled to the Persian Gulf in the days before the recently concluded Iraq war.

That point was underscored again Thursday as Iraqi attacks killed at least two more U.S. soldiers. Reports of attacks on U.S. troops appeared almost hourly throughout the day, one of the heaviest days of Iraqi unrest since President Bush announced the end of combat operations on May 1.

Troop security and the search for weapons are two rising concerns for lawmakers.

Roberts said he will meet with Kansas troops on his trip. He also will speak with members of the special team now spearheading the search for Speicher, the Kansas City pilot missing since the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Roberts compared the search for Speicher to the search for weapons of mass destruction. The search must be conducted with patience and will only be successful as more wanted Iraqis fall into U.S. custody.

"We have to find people who had personal interactions with him," he said.

Reach Alan Bjerga at (202) 383-6055 or abjerga@krwashington.com. "