Troops greet Kerry outside Baghdad hotel [View All]

[leftchick]

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-19/110499806917220.xml

~snip~

"I've been visiting a lot places like Des Moines and Green Bay, and it has been great," Kerry said during an informal lunch meeting with a small group of reporters and officials of nongovernmental organizations. "But we are at war, and I think you can't really make all the judgments that you need to make without digging in."

He declined to compare the insurgency in Iraq with the challenges he faced in South Vietnam as a Navy gunboat lieutenant three decades ago. But he insisted that superior firepower alone wouldn't quell the uprising disrupting Iraq.

"No insurgency is defeated by conventional military power alone," he said, pointing to the Irish Republican Army, which fought a decades-long guerrilla war against the British in Northern Ireland. "It was defeated by a combination of time and political negotiation."

The senator was also scheduled to meet with officials of the U.S. Embassy as well as members of the interim Iraqi government, including Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and a deputy to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shi'a leader at the top of an electoral list thought to be the front-runner in Iraq's Jan. 30 elections.

Soldiers approached Kerry inside the restaurant of the Rashid Hotel, where he met with the journalists, asking him to pose for photographs and sign T-shirts. The restaurant manager insisted on serving Kerry the house specialty, a plate of grilled chicken and lamb.



In this photograph released by the U.S. Army, Senator John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., talks with soldiers at Camp Al Tahreer in Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites), Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005. During his visit, Kerry discussed sports, the presidential election and the state of the war in Iraq. Pictured from left to right are Spc. Michelle Lacourse, 126th Aviation Battalion; Pfc. Kevin Cole, 356th Engineer Battalion; Spc. Michael Foly, 356th Engineer Battalion; and Sgt. Raymond Hegarty, 356th Engineer Battalion. (AP Photo/U.S. Army, Pfc. Charles Maib)