FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 25, 2008
CONTACT: Matt Mackowiak
Sen. Hutchison Completes Congressional Delegation Trip to Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan
With Rep. Burgess, Sen. Hutchison meets with President Musharraf and Opposition Leaders in Pakistan and General Petraeus in Iraq
WASHINGTON -- On Sunday U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and U.S. Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX) returned from a four-day Congressional delegation to Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Sen. Hutchison and Rep. Burgess met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad and then separately visited with a group that included the Co-Chairman of the Pakistani People’s Party (PPP), Asif Ali Zardari, the likely new Prime Minister Makdoom Amin Fahim, and the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson.
“I was very pleased to have meetings in Pakistan with both President Musharraf and PPP leader Zardari this week,” said Sen. Hutchison. “This is a pivotal time for Pakistan, with a new majority now controlling the parliament. It is my hope that our two countries will continue to build our partnership in the fight against terrorism.”
Sen. Hutchison and Rep. Burgess then received military briefings at Bagram A.F.B. and visited a local military hospital.
At the end of their trip, Sen. Hutchison and Rep. Burgess spent a full day in Baghdad, receiving briefings from the top U.S. military commanders, including General David Petraeus, eating lunch with Texas troops in a security camp in downtown Baghdad, and visiting a local police station to witness the embedding of U.S. and Iraqi troops.
“The progress in Baghdad is encouraging,” said Sen. Hutchison. “In our meeting with General Petraeus and our visit to a local police station where our troops are embedded with Iraqi police, you can see that Iraqis are taking more of the responsibility for their security. This is a major step toward decreasing the U.S. presence, so our troop numbers can be lowered.”
“America’s security depends on the stability of each of the countries we visited,” said Rep. Burgess. “While they’re all different, they’re also interrelated. Our progress in one helps determine success in the other, and I saw evidence of this success in all three places.”
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