Governors don't want war politicized
By Faith Bremner
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — Six governors, including Hawai'i's Linda Lingle, met with President Bush at the White House yesterday to offer their firsthand view of the war in Iraq and the country's reconstruction.
The governors spent two days in Iraq this week as part of a trip organized by the Defense Department and paid for by taxpayers.
LINGLE
Lingle said the bipartisan group of governors, chosen to represent the country's geographical diversity, concluded that the war should not be politicized this election year.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a Republican and chairman of the National Governors Association, led the delegation. Also along were Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat; Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat; New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican; and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican.
Support for the war has been eroding since the United States' former weapons inspector, David Kay, acknowledged that it's unlikely that Iraq ever had weapons of mass destruction.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday found that 48 percent of those surveyed this week believe that the war was worth fighting, down from 56 percent last month.
"We feel there are simply too many American lives at stake, too many American resources put into this effort to allow it to degrade into political fighting in an election year," said Lingle, a Republican.
"We're all committed to delivering that message when we go home."
The Iraqi people are enthusiastic and hopeful about their future, Lingle said.
"What was interesting to me is, on the one hand, they want their country back but they don't want us to leave," she said. "They need the protection right now as they try to rebuild a country that's been under tyranny for decades."
Two incidents during the governors' two-day stay reminded them that they were seldom far from danger.
In one incident, tracer rounds were fired at a plane they were traveling in, during its takeoff from Baghdad airport. And their armored vehicles stopped once while their military escorts searched the ground, presumably for explosives.
Lingle, in a separate telephone interview with The Advertiser, said she was riding in the cockpit of the plane destined for Jordan, where the governors rested each of their two nights after daylong visits to Baghdad, when tracers were shot toward the plane.
While she could not see the tracers, she felt the plane abruptly change direction. The American plane also deployed decoy devices to draw fire away from the plane, Lingle said.
Lingle is expected back on O'ahu today after spending the night in Los Angeles.
