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Governor sees progress in Iraq Thursday, Feb 2, 2006 By Aaron Sadler Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee defended America's military presence in Iraq on Wednesday and said media accounts of the war do not accurately portray developments in that country. Huckabee returned Sunday from a weeklong trip to the Middle East. He and three other governors visited troops in Iraq. In his monthly radio call-in show Wednesday, the governor said news coverage of the war in Iraq downplays the progress of the U.S. effort there. "From my perspective, we are not getting the full story here," Huckabee said during his show on the Arkansas Radio Network. He said newspapers and television networks list casualty totals and discuss problems in Iraq. "You hear what went wrong," he said. "What you're not getting is the story of what's going right." The governor said Americans shouldn't lose patience with the war effort, and said it would take time for democracy to take hold in the country long oppressed by the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein. "When people say, 'Well, why don't we just pull out of Iraq right now?' Well, democracy can be a slow, tedious and sometimes messy process," he said. To date, 2,242 American troops have died in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003. Huckabee acknowledged that the Bush administration made mistakes in explaining the reasons behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq and in relating how long U.S. troops will be deployed in the region. However, other governors who went on the trip will agree that "significant progress is being made," he said. Huckabee was accompanied by Govs. Rick Perry, R-Texas, Jim Doyle, D-Wis., and Dave Freudenthal, D-Wyo., on the Department of Defense-sponsored trip. A spokeswoman for Wyoming Gov. Freudenthal said the governor thought "troops' morale and confidence aren't necessarily being represented" in media accounts. Huckabee said he visited with a soldier from northwest Arkansas who was severely wounded by an improvised explosive device, yet insisted that he be redeployed to Iraq after his recovery. "I've never been prouder to be an American. I've never been prouder to be an Arkansan," Huckabee said. "There were many times which I was choking back tears when I would listen to the stories of sacrifice and courage." About 200 National Guard troops from Arkansas are now in Iraq and Kuwait. Most are with the 142nd Field Artillery Brigade based in Springdale. Huckabee said all the soldiers he spoke to said they had sufficient body armor and equipment needed for combat, despite homeland criticism to the contrary. He said he was "in awe" of the military's combat readiness. "There's never been a military in the history of the world that is better trained, better fed, better equipped, better prepared, better protected than our men and women in the United States military," he said. In addition to visiting Iraq, Huckabee and the other governors visited Afghanistan and toured earthquake-ravaged areas of Pakistan. Also Wednesday, the governor said a caller should ask Mike Beebe or the state Ethics Commission, not him, questions about whether Beebe conducted campaign business out of his state office. Beebe is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Huckabee is term-limited this year. An Arkansas News Bureau columnist wrote Saturday that Beebe, the state's attorney general, had interviewed a political consultant in the taxpayer-funded attorney general's office during normal business hours. Also, Beebe staffer Ruth Whitney has said she has cut the number of hours she works in the attorney general's office to work for Beebe's campaign. Late Wednesday, Whitney, Beebe's chief of staff, announced her resignation from the attorney general's office. She said she accepted a job at a research and consulting firm. She will continue to work for Beebe's campaign. A campaign spokesman for Beebe said the activity was "above board." Huckabee said members of his staff who worked for previous campaigns "fully severed themselves" from their state jobs before taking campaign roles. "There are certainly some stories coming out and I know they have been troubling to some people," Huckabee said. " ... It's not for me to jump in the middle of. It's not my campaign." |
