Nancy Pelosi Visits Iraq, Nobody Cares

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OPSEC prevents explanation of the details, but V.I.P. visits to Iraq generally require complex logistics and are very expensive to the American taxpayer. They usually serve one of three purposes: fact-finding, boosting troop morale, or diplomatic engagement. Since it doesn't look like Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) got around the country too much, that would only mean that the reason for her recent visit was for diplomatic purposes. But if that was the case, she certainly got a pretty chilly reception. Time reports (h/t Gateway Pundit):

Pelosi is something of a nonentity to average Iraqis. If they know who she is at all, she is generally seen as an antiwar caricature figure, someone whose views on U.S. troop withdrawals are widely considered unrealistic. Pelosi has said she wants to see most U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the 2008, a time frame virtually no Iraqi political leader sees as feasible. Not even Mahdi Army militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, the fiercest advocate of a U.S. withdrawal on the scene, has called for such a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces. Rather, Sadr contends that the Americans should simply announce a reasonable timetable for the departure of U.S. forces. The lack of popularity of Pelosi's views was evident in the fact that her first day on the ground Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not make an effort to see her.

Most diplomatic visits are followed up with a joint press conference with their Iraqi counterparts, but Nancy Pelosi skedaddled just as soon as the news broke that she was in-country. There's no press release on her website about her trip as of this post, but she does have some colorful words for the Prez using the context of the Iraq war on her official site. It makes me wonder why she even bothered flying in. For a congresswoman who once called Iraq government a "failure", it's probably best her trip went unnoticed.