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Klobuchar calls troop surge inadequate (Pioneer Press)

March 18, 2007

Klobuchar calls troop surge inadequate Visit to Baghdad eye opening, senator says BY DAVE ORRICK Pioneer Press

Saying President Bush's troop surge isn't a dynamic enough approach to secure Iraq, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who was in Baghdad on Saturday, called for a clearer diplomatic, political and economic vision for American policy.

"We need a surge in diplomacy and a surge in the economic situation and a surge in the political situation," the freshman Democrat from Minnesota said in a conference call with reporters during her first visit to the country. "The solution is not more boots on the ground, it's a political one and an economic one."

On the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Klobuchar spent Saturday night in Iraq's capital with a small contingent of senators from both parties.

The trip - kept secret for security reasons - comes as Congress takes a greater role in its oversight of the war and follows an unsuccessful effort in the Senate by mostly Democratic critics, including Klobuchar, to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces.

After arriving in a dust storm in Kuwait, Klobuchar and three other senators boarded an Army Apache helicopter Friday and flew to Baghdad, where they met with Minnesota soldiers and American military leaders and visited Iraq's parliament, an experience she said opened her eyes to the reality of the government there.

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