On Monday, I participated in a conference call that Rep. Steve Rothman had with bloggers upon his return from a trip to Iraq, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Kuwait. It was a good conference call. We need more Congressmen doing more conference calls with bloggers. Yet we also need to think more about how we support our servicemen and women when they return.

Rep. Rothman described what he saw over there, admitting that it was all presented the eyes of the military, so it needs to be viewed with some skepticism. He said that it appears that various factions are coming to recognize that what they’ve been doing hasn’t been working and things need to change. The Kurds cannot expect to have their own country anytime soon. Such a development would most like start a major regional war, and the Kurds would end up worse off then they are now.

The Sunnis are recognizing that they are a minority and that regaining a majority position in the government just isn’t in the cards. Shiites are coming to understand that vengeance is a two handed sword.

Because of this, the various factions are trying to find ways to cooperate, and concrete results are happening, such as progress on an oil revenue sharing solution.

He had some interesting observations about Al Qaeda. There are an estimated 2,000 Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq. For a country of 26 million, that is a fairly small number, and as Sunnis and Shiites a like come to recognize that Al Qaeda is no friend, Rothman hopes that the Iraqis will find the resolve to shut down Al Qaeda. He made another interesting observation about this. Just as we American’s can recognize that a person is not from our area by their accents, different Arabic accents stand out and foreign interlopers are easily recognized.

One person asked why, if things are improving the way Rep. Rothman has described, are we talking about bringing the troops home now. Rep. Rothman suggested that the fact that we are recognizing that what’s been going on in Iraq hasn’t been working and we are talking about bringing the troops home has helped Iraqis recognize the need and find the resolve to start addressing their problems and has helped bring about some of the positive change we are seeing.

As the troops come back home, we need to be thinking about how they will be received. We talked about the issues at Walter Reed and I asked about how our servicemen and women suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, will be cared for. Rep. Rothman noted that total cost of the war to date is a trillion dollars, with three hundred and fifty billion dollars of that going to physical and mental health care. The amount needed for the treatment of PTSD hasn't been broken out, and I suspect is probably being underestimated.

This is a topic close to my heart right now, because I’ve been reading an advanced copy of Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops by Ilona Meagher. I’ve spoken with Ilona at various conferences and she asked me to review her book. I hope to write up a more detailed review soon, but let me simply say here, that those who care about our servicemen and women should really get this book when it comes out in May.

Rep. Rothman didn’t have a lot of specifics to say about how Congress will make sure that our returning servicemen and women get the hero’s welcome home and the treatment that they deserve. He simply noted that since January, there have been over fifty oversight hearings and that the issue of veterans’ care will be addressed in ‘The Supplemental’, as well as in future budgets.

There were similar discussions about restoring our civil liberties and making sure that our National Guard is not misused by the war effort.

We need to be talking more about these issues. We need more conference calls between bloggers and members of Congress. We need more Congressional oversight. This conference call was a good starting point, and I hope we see many more.

(Cross-posted at BlueJersey)