Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has lunch at Camp Fallujah in Iraq with Rhode Island Marines Kristie St. Jean of Woonsocket, Christopher Tilson of Providence and Anthony Paulo of Westerly.

Photo courtesy of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse returned from a weekend visit to Iraq yesterday with what he described as a sense of optimism that “at its heart, the mission has really fundamentally changed” toward handing off military duties as rapidly as possible to Iraqi forces so that American troops can begin to withdraw.

But that optimism was leavened by uncertainty about whether President Bush’s new strategy to improve security in Baghdad will attain long-lasting results, the Rhode Island Democrat said in an interview yesterday. He said he also came back with continuing concerns about whether Iraq’s government is doing enough to secure the political gains needed to withstand the insurgency.

Whitehouse said he believes the message of last fall’s congressional elections has helped to turn U.S. forces and even some dissident Iraqi groups toward policies that could strengthen the Iraqi government in its struggle against a violent insurgency.

The freshman Democrat’s return from his first visit to Iraq coincided with the fourth anniversary of the war’s start. He left for Iraq Thursday with a congressional delegation that also included Senators John Sununu, R-N.H., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

They flew to Baghdad via Kuwait, spending Saturday in meetings with members of the U.S. military leadership, including Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of ground forces in Iraq; with the State Department team, and with Iraq’s minister of security and the speaker of the Iraqi parliament. The senators remained in the relative security of Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Sunday, the delegation traveled by helicopter to the western city of Fallujah, where Whitehouse said he was impressed by the apparent change in the mission. Based on what he heard from members of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Fallujah, Whitehouse traced the new course to last fall’s elections.

Whitehouse said the Marine commander, Gen. Walter E. Gaskin, and his force appear to be focused on a mission of training Iraqi army and security forces and rapidly turning over sectors of the war-torn city to those local units, with an eye toward eventual withdrawal of American troops.

Whitehouse said, again attributing the report to American forces in Fallujah, that Iraqi leaders appear to have gotten the message that the Americans are not in Iraq permanently and have consequently begun to prepare for a reduced American force.

For example, he said the Marines recounted how one Sunni leader recently mustered 500 troops to join Iraqi government forces as volunteers. Whitehouse interpreted that story as meaning that, at least in the western province of Anbar, dissident Iraqis have begun to believe that it would be better to join the government than to risk continuing conflict in which they could lose out to the foreign terrorist forces of al-Qaida in Iraq.

“The thing that really struck me over and over and over again,” in meetings in Baghdad and Fallujah, was that the U.S. military was “basically on its way out of Iraq,” focused on the coming “handoff” of military control to the Iraqis, Whitehouse said.

In media interviews from Iraq during the weekend, Republicans Sununu and Murkowski both stressed the recent reports of a reduction in the number of violent attacks since the U.S. security crackdown began several weeks ago. Sununu told New Hampshire reporters Saturday that the security situation in Baghdad appears to have improved during the weeks since Mr. Bush launched the new strategy often referred to as the “surge,” because it includes an influx of between 20,000 and 30,000 U.S. troops by summer and a renewed focus on stabilizing the capital city.

Whitehouse said yesterday that he shared with other members of the delegation a sense that there have been modest security improvements in Baghdad. But he said it’s too early to tell whether they will be durable or whether insurgents will simply go outside Baghdad to sow devastation in areas beyond the reach of the beefed up U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Sununu also stressed an aspect of the strategy that is not as well known: stepped up pressure on Iraqi politicians to find political compromises that could spread the nation’s resources among its contesting religious and ethnic groups and bring estranged Sunni Muslims into the new government.

On that account, Whitehouse said he found the meeting with Iraqi officials on Saturday “less than inspiring” because they did not convey a sense of urgency in setting a new round of regional elections, which could lead to power sharing with Sunnis, or in sealing a national deal for the distribution of oil industry resources.

Whitehouse said the U.S. military leaders asked the senators repeatedly for help in replenishing the troops with replacement equipment and other resources. Whitehouse dismissed as Bush administration “spin” any notion that Democratic efforts to accelerate U.S. troop withdrawals will affect support for the troops.

Whitehouse, who voted last week for an unsuccessful Democratic Senate resolution that would have set non-binding goals for troop withdrawals, said he would favor stronger legislative steps to push the administration toward a new policy. Whitehouse said he could favor outright deadlines for troop withdrawals, as well as measures to tighten the purse strings on the war effort. But he said he voted for the more modest resolution — which failed on a close vote — in order to stand with a unified Democratic front.

jmulligan@belo-dc.com