Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: Trip Report

January 14, 2007

Washington, DC –Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), and Congressman John M. McHugh (R-NY), met today with U.S. troops and Afghan leaders as they continued their Congressional Delegation (CODEL) visit today in Afghanistan. After a day of meetings in Bagram and Kabul, the three also stopped to meet with Pakistani President Musharraf before continuing on to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. On Monday, before returning to the United States, the CODEL will visit Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LMRC) and the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility (CASF).

Below is a brief description of their schedule today in Afghanistan and Pakistan:

• Meeting with Major General Benjamin Freakley, Commanding General of the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum.

• Breakfast with U.S. troops serving in the New York based 10th Mountain Division at Bagram Airbase.

• Visit with U.S. troops stationed at Camp Eggers, Afghanistan

• Meeting with U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann and Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan.

• Lunch hosted by Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.

• Senator Clinton met with Afghan women leaders.

• Meeting with General Pervez Musharraf, President, Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The delegation flew out of Baghdad on a C-130 to Kuwait and immediately boarded another flight to Islamabad. We arrived early Sunday morning in Pakistan so we were only to grab a few hours sleep before we needed to head to the airport once again for another C-130 flight, this time to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

We were met at Bagram by Major General Benjamin Freakley, the commanding General of the 10 th Mountain Division. I had last seen General Freakley when I visited Fort Drum last year prior to the 10 th Mountain Division’s deployment to Afghanistan.

General Freakley escorted us to the base dining facility where we were served breakfast on the chow line before moving to sit with soldiers in the dining area. Congressman McHugh and I sat with 10 th Mountain Division soldiers while Senator Bayh visited with soldiers from Indiana. Some of the soldiers at breakfast were some of the same soldiers that I had seen at Fort Drum the year before.

As I sat at the table with 10th Mountain Division soldiers, I heard about their experiences in Afghanistan battling the Taliban and elements of Al Qaeda and their pride in what they had accomplished in Afghanistan. I expressed gratitude for their service in Afghanistan and asked how we could best support the servicemembers and their mission.

After breakfast, we headed back out to the airfield to fly via C-130 to Kabul where we were met by U.S. Ambassador Robert Neumann. We proceeded with the Ambassador to the Embassy where we were met by Lt. General Karl Eikenberry, the Commander, Combined Task Force-Afghanistan. Lt. General Eikenberry is completing his two-year tour as the overall commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the end of January. After a briefing on the current situation in Afghanistan with Ambassador Neumann, Lt. Gen. Eikenberry and other members of the Embassy staff, the delegation left to head to the palace for lunch with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

I had told my colleagues that our lunch with President Karzai would likely be the best meal of our trip and President Karzai did not disappoint. Over several delicious courses of Afghan cuisine, we discussed the current challenges facing Afghanistan. By the end of the meal, the members of our delegation all agreed that it was a memorable meal.

From lunch, we traveled to Camp Eggers, a military base near the U.S. embassy, and received a classified intelligence briefing. I then went to meet with a group of Afghan women leaders. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, I have been meeting with Afghan women leaders in both Washington and Afghanistan and offering support for their efforts. This group of impressive women included a deputy minister and a Brigadier General. While their progress has been inspiring, there are still tremendous challenges facing women in Afghanistan and we discussed what steps would be helpful in supporting Afghan women going forward.

The delegation regrouped at the Camp Eggers Mess Hall as Congressman McHugh and I met with servicemembers from New York and Senator Bayh met with servicemembers from Indiana. We answered questions from the troops and expressed our strong support for their mission in Afghanistan. At the end of the meeting, the troops presented each member of the delegation with a certificate of appreciation and a flag that had flown over Camp Eggers.

We headed back to the airport to catch a C-130 flight to Lahore, Pakistan for an evening meeting with General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president. Our stop in Lahore brought back fond memories of a trip to Lahore over 10 years earlier while I was First Lady. We met with President Musharraf in Lahore’s Army House and had a wide-ranging discussion on regional security issues.

After the meeting with President Musharraf, we returned to the airport to rejoin our delegation plane and begin the long flight to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

After a tiring trip, we were finally able to get a full night’s rest at Ramstein. The next morning, the delegation left the base to head to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, an Army hospital where wounded soldiers coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan often come for treatment. We were briefed by hospital staff about the operations of the Hospital and then visited several patients. We told the servicembers who are patients at Landstuhl how proud we were of them and our confidence that they were receiving the best care possible. The advances in medical treatment and care that we saw at Landstuhl were truly impressive.

After our visit to Landstuhl, we headed into the town of Ramstein for a traditional German lunch with leading officers from Ramstein Air Force base After lunch, we returned to the Air Force Base to tour the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility where incoming wounded soldiers are received. We also stopped by the USO to see some servicemembers and base personnel.

With the end of that tour, we returned to our plane for the trip back to Washington, DC.

Our Congressional delegation trip provided me with an invaluable opportunity to evaluate the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan first hand. As I take these experiences back to my work in the Senate, my thoughts will also remain with the service members who we met on this trip, from the men and women in uniform fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to the wounded servicemembers we saw in Landstuhl. As Americans, we should be proud of these brave young men and women and continue to offer them our full support. I am sure that my work on the Senate Armed Services Committee and in the Senate more generally will reflect the experiences that I had on this Congressional delegation.