As colonel, Sen. Graham goes back to Iraq

This week, for the third time in 10 months, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will don a military uniform and go to Iraq as an ID card-carrying member of the U.S. armed forces. The Air Force Reservist is the only sitting member of the Senate to deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

But unlike most everyone else downrange, the senator’s stay will be brief, about 10 days, comparable to his two stints in April and August of last year.

“I’d like to do more, but [with] the day job, you know in the Senate, it’s hard to get away for any long period,” Graham said in an interview with Stars and Stripes during the recent Munich conference on world security.

Graham served as an Air Force lawyer for more than six years. When he left the active-duty ranks in 1989, he joined the South Carolina Air National Guard, until he was elected to the House in 1994. At that point, he signed on with the Reserve, and is now an instructor at the Air Force Judge Advocate General School.

The Defense Department has given Graham special dispensation that allows him to stay in the Reserve. Graham said his schedule is now such that he couldn’t continue his service without some form of dispensation.

“I know it is something unique and different and I appreciate it,” Graham said, “and I try to make it a positive experience for DOD. ... I know my contribution is small and insignificant compared to most, but it’s what I can do. I want to do what I can do.”

As was the case last year, Graham will work for Task Force 134, which handles detainee issues and efforts to rebuild Iraq’s justice system, among other things. The senator indicated he would spend some of his time at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.

His focus will largely be on detainee matters. The military justice system is currently working on a process to channel prisoners — Graham put the number at 26,000 — into one of three lanes for adjudication.

Graham is probably well-versed in that area, since he had a hand in crafting the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It includes terms that allow for the prosecution of enemy combatants, such as suspected terrorists.

“The key to Iraq, the key to any democracy, is the rule of law,” Graham said. “We have to have a legal system where it’s about what you did, not who you are.”

But who Graham is — a U.S. senator — does matter. When he is milling about a camp in camouflage some people recognize him. Many don’t. A few sort of know, but can’t quite place him.

“One guy came up, and he said: ‘Do I know you?’ I said, ‘Well you might.’ He said, ‘Are you on TV?’ And I said, ‘Sometimes.’ He says, ‘Do you do the weather?’ [He thought] I was the AFN weather guy,” Graham recalled, referring to the American Forces Network TV personality.

In addition to Graham, five sitting Representatives are also on Standby Reserve: Steve Buyer, R-Ind.; Chris Carney, D-Pa.; Mark Steven Kirk, R-Ill.; Patrick Murphy, D-Pa.; and John Shimkus, R-Ill.

There was a time not long ago when Congress was well represented by military veterans. That’s not the case any longer, according to a conservative group. Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, wrote recently that veterans make up only 29 percent of the Senate and 23 percent of the House. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, there was more than twice that many in both houses.

“Seeing a politician in uniform surprises a lot of people,” Graham said. But, he added, “there’s a long tradition of that.”

Leo Shane III also contributed to this report.