michael barrios spent about four hours on the ground in iraq speaking to various officials including the prime minister on the way there he spoke to reporters he was asked so why the sudden trip to iraq canceling a trip to germany to talk to merkel perry gave three reasons first of all he did put it in the context of the increasing escalation of rhetoric from washington against iran and he said that he wanted to and reassure the iraqi leadership that the u.s. stood ready to to continue to ensure that iraq was a sovereign independent nation which led to a question from a reporter on board a plane well do you have some intelligence that iran is trying to make iraq less of a sovereign nation of the trying to overthrow the iraqi government to which compare replied narrative about he didn't want to imply that this is all just in keeping with the national security strategy of the drop of ministration had laid out at the beginning of the presidency and it's those sorts of comments of the leading to the great deal of skepticism we're seeing in washington a surprising amount of skepticism for