JUNEAU -- Gov. Frank Murkowski spent two days in Iraq, where he lunched with Alaska troops, spent the night at a palace of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and spoke with the vice president of Iraq about the Alaska Permanent Fund.
Speaking by telephone from Kuwait on Wednesday, Murkowski said morale was high among soldiers from Fort Wainwright's 172nd Stryker Brigade despite searing heat and the recent news of the torture and killing of two soldiers in Baghdad.
"It's a privilege to see these young men and women who are really committed to do a job for our country," he said. "This is tough duty over here, I tell you."
Murkowski also met with members of the 423rd Infantry from Fort Richardson while in Kuwait. He said he was impressed with the Alaska troops' abilities and their high-tech equipment, although he found that most soldiers were just as eager to talk about home.
He is collecting cards from soldiers with their home information so that he can telephone their families upon his return to Alaska next week, he said.
Murkowski said Alaska has more than just troops to share with Iraq. He discussed the Alaska Permanent Fund with Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, who was interested in Alaska's approach toward preserving its oil wealth.
Murkowski said his overnight stay in Hussein's once-luxurious Baghdad palace put into perspective the different approaches toward spending that wealth.
"You get an appreciation of the tremendous wealth of Iraq and how it was funneled, not to the benefit of the people but for the benefit of Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants," he said.
Murkowski said the state would be sending information on the state savings account and the Permanent Fund dividend program to Iraqi leaders.
The governor traveled in Iraq by Blackhawk helicopter and C-130 under high security. Temperatures reached 114 degrees in Mosul, he said, and climbed to 130 degrees while he was in flight.
"We are wearing heavy, heavy, heavy flack jackets and a heavy helmet, and it's 114 degrees, and it's really something else," he said.
Two other Republican governors, John Hoeven of North Dakota and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, accompanied Murkowski. The three were invited to visit Iraq by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has had a policy of inviting governors to meet with troops and see U.S. operations firsthand.
Twenty-three governors have made the trip this year, and 32 governors have been to Iraq since the war began, including many with presidential aspirations in 2008.
Murkowski recently announced his own intentions to run again for governor but said that played little role in his decision to make the trip.
"I considered it a great opportunity to say, 'You guys are doing a great job,'" he said.
Political pundits said the trip likely won't make much difference in Murkowski's low approval ratings anyway.
Ivan Moore of Ivan Moore Research in Anchorage said the publicity might provide a "little bounce," but he predicted the governor's negative ratings were too entrenched to see much impact.
Clive Thomas, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska Southeast, said he would be surprised if it helped.
"I just find it an odd thing to do, particularly in the middle of the whole pipeline discussion," he said.
Thomas added that foreign trips might play well in New York state but Alaskans tended to be "a bit more inward-looking," he said.
The trip started Monday with Pentagon briefings on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The governors will head to Afghanistan on Thursday to meet with President Hamid Karzai and regional governors in Kabul. They will then travel to Ramstein Air Base in Germany before flying back to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Details of the governors' trip to Iraq were not announced in advance at the request of the Defense Department.
The trip was Murkowski's second visit to Iraq. As a U.S. senator, he traveled to Iraq with Senate majority leader Bob Dole and others to meet with Hussein prior to the first Gulf War.
