A weekend in Afghanistan left U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman both optimistic and apprehensive.

He said he learned about improved security measures against Taliban insurgents, the early stage formation of a judicial system, the development of education and nutrition programs and the increasing trust in American troops and officials by Afghans.

“I didn’t sense anything from the Afghan people that they didn’t want Americans there,” Stutzman, R-3rd, said last week. “You saw little kids on the side of the road giving thumbs up” to vehicles carrying the congressional delegation.

But the first-term lawmaker also saw extreme poverty the Taliban can exploit for recruiting purposes, a seemingly open-ended reliance on U.S. aid and police who “dry fired” their unloaded rifles around a room during a training exercise.

“They weren’t trained well enough to understand that you don’t point guns at anybody,” Stutzman said. “We laughed about it later, but at the time it was a little spooky feeling.”

Stutzman said his initial trip to Afghanistan offered “mixed messages” from people he talked with.

“One moment you think, wow, this is going to take a generation to fix. But at the same time, if we can get these folks trained and to take responsibility, maybe we can get it done,” he said.

Stutzman visited Afghanistan Dec. 10 and 11 with four other members of the House Budget Committee, including its high-profile chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and a member of the Financial Services Committee. They met with American and Afghan military and diplomatic leaders, among them U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

The committee sought “a good understanding of what’s happening in Afghanistan, how our troops are feeling, what their sense is moving forward, because we are going to be putting another budget together in about three months,” Stutzman said.

“We’ve spent a lot of money there already, but you see progress,” he said.

Estimates vary on the amount of money Congress has spent since going to war in 2001 against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Figures from the Congressional Research Service put the cost at $444 billion, including nearly $119 billion in fiscal 2011. The numbers include expenditures by the Defense, State and Veterans Affairs departments.

President Obama and NATO hope to withdraw troops by the end of 2014. Stutzman said announcing the timeline “is not a wise thing to do,” because it allows the Taliban to plan accordingly. But he acknowledged that U.S. forces can’t defend the country forever.

“We met with one of the governors, and he said, ‘We’d like to see you here until 2025,’ ” Stutzman said. “And we’re like, ‘We don’t want to be here until 2025. You need to take this over, and you need to take responsibility, you need to fight the Taliban within your own communities. We’re here just to help you get that started.’

“Giving them a hand is one thing. They would let us do it as long as we wanted to,” he said.

Stutzman met with American troops, including soldiers from Fort Wayne and DeKalb County, at military bases in Kabul and the Helmand province.

“One thing that stood out loud and clear is that our folks over there are doing such a good job,” he said.

They demonstrated humility and patience in working with Afghan forces, Stutzman said, “but at the same time a firmness in saying that this has to get done.”

Apart from gun-pointing police officers, Stutzman had another nervous moment: A military helicopter he was riding in automatically discharged heat flares as if to distract a missile attack. It turned out to be in response to a hot area on the ground, Stutzman said, likely a fire.

“All I saw was smoke streams flying out the back of the helicopter, so I quickly looked at the gunners to see if they were shooting at anything,” he said. “They were just standing there like nothing had happened. The general we were with started laughing and said, ‘You guys are fine, nothing’s wrong, everything’s OK.’ A novice guy like me is watching everything.”

bfrancisco@jg.net