“We learned it’s not safe to go anywhere outside of the Green Zone any part of the day,” he said.

The movements of Gutknecht and four other congressmen were carefully controlled by security forces worried about abduction attempts by insurgents, he said.

“They realize people like us are juicy targets.”

Gutknecht’s sobering report contrasts with many of his fellow conservative supporters of the war. The Republican National Committee sends out weekly e-mails to the media called “Iraq Facts” that paint a picture of steady progress toward stability and Iraqi self-governance. And conservative commentators have consistently said that the American people are being provided an overly dire picture of the Iraq war by the mainstream media.

“While a little bit of progress has been made, there’s an awful lot that needs to be done,” Gutknecht said.

Gutknecht was critical of some of the “spin” from Bush administration officials in the Pentagon and the State Department. He specifically pointed to past statements that a few hundred insurgents were causing the violence in the Iraq. Military officials say they’ve captured 10,000 even as the insurgency continues unabated.

“That’s a far cry from what we were told originally,” he said. “... All of the information we receive sometimes from the Pentagon and the State Department isn’t always true.”

The American troops, however, are performing heroically, he said.

“They’re doing a terrific job in enormously difficult circumstances.”

That doesn’t mean that more troops could win the war.

“What I think we need to do more is withdraw more Americans,” he said.

It’s up to Iraqis to fix Iraq, and they need to do it soon, according to Gutknecht.

“I think we’re at a very important tipping point, and the next six weeks is going to be critical,” he said, although he declined to elaborate on the dangers facing Iraq if the situation doesn’t improve by September. “... I don’t want to predict what will happen if things don’t get better.”

He did say that the patience of average Americans might begin to wear thin if improvements don’t come soon.

“Americans are going to start losing faith in this thing,” he said.