GRUDGING APPROVAL

Reading this, can't you just feel how this guy doesn't really want to admit we might succeed?

Before U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind., traveled to Iraq last weekend to look at military and reconstruction efforts, he said he believed U.S. success there was nearly impossible.

"Being there and seeing what I've seen," he said Monday, "I've gone from 'almost impossible' to 'maybe.' "

Hill was among the more than one-third of House Democrats who last year voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq. He also "reluctantly" voted last week to spend nearly $87 billion for continued military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He has had doubts about whether those votes were correct, Hill said, but was encouraged by the response he got from Iraqis. He said the people he met seemed to like America and appreciated the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Hill acknowledged that his interactions with Iraqis were limited -- they included an arranged visit to a school and hospital in Baghdad. But he was impressed that in the school he visited, students from two different branches of Islam were being taught together -- something he had been led to believe couldn't happen. And when he waved to Iraqi adults as his escorted convoy drove through the streets, Hill said the Iraqis smiled and waved back.