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Sen. Joe Lieberman visited Baghdad this week, offering a positive assessment of what he learned during his trip.
"Overall, I would say what I see here today is progress, significant progress from the last time I was here in December," the Connecticut senator reported, "And if you can see progress in war that means you’re headed in the right direction."
It's impossible to know what Lieberman was told in his conversations with Iraqi and American soldiers, but Leila Fadel reports for McLatchy what one group of soldiers had intended to communicate.
Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, MA, was chosen to have lunch with the Senator. The night before, about 30 fellow soldiers crowded around him to suggest questions they wanted Lieberman to answer.
He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:"When are we going to get out of here?"
The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?
Williams missed six months of his girlfriend's pregnancy when he was given six days' notice to return to Iraq for his second tour. He also missed his baby boy's birth. Three weeks ago, he went home and saw his first child.
"He looks just like me," he said. "I didn't want to come back. . . . We're waiting to get blown up."
Williams wasn't sure if he would say how he really felt. But if he could, he'd ask about body armor.
"I don't want him to snap his fingers to get things fixed," Williams said, referring to Lieberman. "But he has influence."
The Senator arrived wearing the sunglasses he'd just purchased on his one-hour heavily-guarded tour of a Baghdad market, telling the soldiers in his opening comments:
"I think it's important we don't lose our will," he said. "To pull out would be a disaster."The soldiers smiled, stood with him for pictures and sat down to lunch.
It was unclear if they asked their questions.
As Lieberman walked out, he said that congressionally mandated withdrawal would be a "victory for al Qaeda and a victory for Iran."
"They're not Pollyannaish about this," he said referring to the soldiers. ''They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month."
It isn't clear whether Williams mentioned the last line on his note card.
"We don't feel like we're making any progress," it said.
