Fallin says situation looks better in Iraq

By Chris Casteel

Published: July 31, 2007

WASHINGTON — Rep. Mary Fallin returned Monday from a quick visit to Iraq and said additional U.S. troops and local anger about al-Qaida operations has turned around a central Iraqi town that used to be among the country's most dangerous.

Fallin, R-Oklahoma City, said she and other freshman lawmakers who made the weekend trip were able to walk down the streets of Ramadi, in the Anbar province. It wasn't long ago, she said, that the streets weren't safe.

"There's still a lot of work to do on the ground,” she told Oklahoma reporters in a conference call from Germany, where the congressional delegation stopped before returning to the United States.

Fallin met with soldiers from Tulsa in Ramadi and had dinner with some Oklahoma troops in Baghdad.

The morale of the troops was high, she said.

Among those who talked to the delegation were Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker and Iraq's commander of ground troops.

Fallin said Petraeus was "upbeat and optimistic, although he acknowledged there are many challenges ahead.”

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