PHOENIX - Gov. Janet Napolitano does not want U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq - at least not yet.
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And, from her perspective as commander of the Arizona National Guard, she said the troopers "are being used for missions that they were trained to do.''
Asked specifically whether, more than three years into the fighting, it is time to withdraw, Napolitano responded that she, along with counterparts from Minnesota and Oklahoma, were briefed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
She said he laid out "this is what we're doing, this is how we're going to get at it.'' Napolitano said Petraeus told the three governors the mission now is to reduce the level of sectarian violence.
"If there comes a point at some point when I don't believe we can do that with the forces that we have and have committed, then
I'll tell the Congress that, and I'll tell the president that,'' Napolitano said in a telephonic press conference from Kuwait.
"But they've got a plan, they've put a plan in place.''
Nor did the governor believe that the change in mission - going from unseating Saddam Hussein to being in the middle of what has become a civil war - makes the current U.S. role inappropriate.
"We've already committed to so many years here,'' Napolitano said.
"The key thing to restoring stability so that Iraq can go off on its own and we won't have to have such a large troop commitmen here is to reduce this amount of sectarian violence,'' the governor continued. "That is what is being sought after now.''
But Napolitano is backing away, at least a bit, from her support for the decision to go to war with Iraq in the first place.
On Wednesday, asked specifically about whether her backing for the invasion has been altered by what she has seen, Napolitano insisted that her stance was being mischaracterized.
"Don't put words in my mouth,'' the governor said. "What I said was I was not making that decision,'' she continued. "But what I said is, based on the information we had, the decision was made and I wasn't going to second guess it.''
In fact, though, Napolitano said in October 2005 the failure to find weapons of mass destruction - the Bush administration's stated goal for invading - did not mean the war was a mistake.
"In my view, there were lots of reasons for taking out Sadda Hussein,'' she said at the time. She acknowledged no weapons were found.
"But there were lots of other reasons as well,'' Napolitan continued. She said there were 67 Arizonans who had died "and think we need to get Iraq back on course and have a successful exit strategy.''
As of Wednesday, as the number of soldiers in Iraq is increasing, the Arizona death total was 79.
The governor also said it is "too soon to tell'' if that troo "surge'' is making a difference.
Napolitano said she got some time to talk with Arizona soldiers.
"Morale is very high,'' she said. "There's a great sense of commitment to what they're being asked to do.''
And the governor said she does not believe that soldiers were loath to speak frankly with her just because she was being escorted by military brass.
She said there were opportunities for solders to talk directly with her around a table. And Napolitano said she also handed out cards with the e-mail address of her staffers if anyone was uncomfortable about asking a question out loud.
"I can smell a dog-and-pony show pretty far away,'' Napolitano said. "This is pretty far from that.''
Napolitano is far from the first governor to be taken by the Department of Defense to Iraq. A spokesman for the federal agency said about three dozen governors have been on similar trips so far.
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