WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has called on a bipartisan pair of Army veterans, Senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel, to accompany him to war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan, a tour that could burnish his credentials for the fall campaign against another Senate colleague with a stronger military background, Republican John McCain.

“They’re both experts on foreign policy,” Obama said of Reed and Hagel over the weekend. “They reflect, I think, a traditional bipartisan wisdom when it comes to foreign policy. Neither of them are ideologues, but [they] try to get the facts right and make a determination about what’s best for U.S. interests — and they’re good guys,” Obama told reporters traveling with his campaign.

Except to place the trip “later this summer,” Reed and Hagel avoided specific details of their itinerary with Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois who is to be nominated for president in just over six weeks at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Rhode Island Democrat Reed called the fact-finding mission “a good opportunity to look, listen, and assess recent developments in the region.” He added, in a joint news release with Hagel, “Our troops are performing heroically in Afghanistan and Iraq and doing everything they can to stem the violence. They deserve a policy that is worthy of their sacrifice.”

An opponent of the invasion of Iraq who is widely viewed on both sides of the aisle as a military thinker with a temperate approach to the volatile issue, Reed made a point of praising Obama’s stance on the war during an interview yesterday.

Nebraska Republican Hagel said, “U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are at the center of America’s national security” and must be addressed in a way that “builds consensus for a bipartisan American foreign policy.”

The candidate’s tour seems designed not only to gather first-hand impressions of the war effort, but also to bolster the Obama campaign’s message that, if he becomes president, he will quell the bitter partisanship over such emotion-laden issues as Iraq. But Obama’s journey — extraordinary for a presidential candidate at this stage of the race — also seems certain to invite scrutiny of his view of the war. McCain’s campaign has depicted Obama’s position on Iraq as shifting and “puzzling.”

OBAMA’S CHOICE of companions for such a politically important trip also promises stepped-up speculation about their possibilities as running mates for a prospective commander-in-chief whose national security experience is comparatively limited. To date, though, Reed and Hagel have not been among those most prominently mentioned as potential vice-presidential candidates. Reed has been emphatic in expressing his wish not to be considered for the job.

But Reed and Hagel offer clear value as guides into the thicket of foreign policy for a nation at war, particularly since Obama faces an opponent with formidable national-security credentials. McCain, a Naval aviator from a prominent Navy family, was a prisoner of war in Hanoi during the Vietnam War and has for years been a leading member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Reed will undoubtedly be an influential voice on military and foreign affairs if Obama becomes president, according to Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s deputy Democratic leader and one of the first prominent backers of Obama’s run for the White House.

“Jack’s background, having graduated from West Point, served as an officer and taught at West Point, and made frequent visits to Iraq — and his personal relationship and familiarity with the leadership in the United States Army — really make him an invaluable resource,” said Durbin.

McCain, likewise, has a high opinion of Reed’s access to key leaders of the war effort.

“Jack travels to Iraq, he has friends in Iraq, and because of his many connections, Jack sees things in Iraq that a lot of us don’t get to see,” McCain said late in 2005.

Earlier that year, for example, Reed was the only civilian official on hand as Gen. John P. Abizaid, then the American commander of U.S. forces from the Horn of Africa to India, made his rounds of several hot spots in Iraq, including Fallujah, a Sunni-dominated western city that for a long time had been bastion of the insurgency, and Mosul, a key, multi-ethnic city near the frontiers of Turkey and Syria in the north.

Over the course of that trip, Reed ranged far beyond the Green Zone briefings customary for congressional delegations to Baghdad, sitting in on classified intelligence briefings and freewheeling sessions that included battle-experienced mid-level officers as well as top commanders, among them the up-and-coming Gen. David Petraeus, now the top commander in Iraq and soon to take charge of Central Command, Abizaid’s position in 2005.

On his previous trips to Iraq — the coming tour with Obama will be his twelfth 12th — Reed has often traveled with just a single staffer and a military liaison to visit a variety of battle zones and military units. It’s not unusual for him to encounter Army acquaintances dating to his days as a junior officer in the 82nd Airborne Division 35 years ago.

Reed, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, is arranging the logistics for the trip with Obama and Hagel. “We’re working very closely with the Army,” he said yesterday.

The three senators plan to meet with top U.S. military commanders and civilians, senior Iraqi and Afghan leaders, plus lower-ranking troops, civilians assigned to the war zones and members of the forces from other nations in the American-led coalition. Reed and his chief military-affairs staffer have also been interviewing uniformed and civilian experts on Iraq to assemble an up-to-date briefing book for the candidate.

In Iraq, the three-man congressional delegation “will examine whether the tactical buildup of U.S. troops has resulted in the progress necessary to resolve Iraq’s political differences, provide basic services to the Iraqi people and create long-term stability,” the release said.

On the Afghanistan leg of the trip, they will assess the struggle against the Taliban, look into the recent rise in violence and study the political and economic situations.

WHILE REED is hardly a household name and comes to military debates with a low-key demeanor, he has long been “the type of member that other members listen to” when he speaks up on defense issues, Army Secretary Pete Geren said several months ago. Geren, a Texas Democrat, has known Reed since they served together in the House.

Geren said Reed’s quiet persistence in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill on the issue of expanding the Army and the Marines was crucial to that effort. Reed and Hagel collaborated on a long campaign to expand the services — an effort that finally got traction after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was replaced by Robert Gates.

Hagel served as an Army sergeant during the Vietnam War. He was twice wounded in 1968 and received two Purple Hearts. He and Reed split on the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein — Hagel supporting the measure and Reed among the minority of Democrats opposing it.

But Hagel has become one of the sharpest Republican critics of the war effort. He is one of a handful of Republicans who have supported the leading Democratic legislation — co-authored by Reed and Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich. — to overhaul the U.S. mission in Iraq and begin troop withdrawals.

Mark Lippert, Obama’s chief Senate aide for foreign policy, said the senator has often consulted with Reed and Hagel — a fellow member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — on war-related matters. Obama and Hagel have collaborated on weapons non-proliferation issues, he said.

Recently, Obama took a suggestion from Reed to sit down in Washington to discuss military affairs with a group of junior officers in the armed services, according to Lippert.

An important intangible in Obama’s selection of Reed and Hagel as companions on the Iraq-Afghanistan trip is that they all get along well. The blend of Reed’s and Hagel’s distinct military and political experience with “Senator Obama’s unbelievably unique life experience” will make for a “synergistic relationship” on their journey, Lippert said.

jmulligan@belo-dc.com