U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe spent most of the weekend in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region on a fact-finding trip, visiting Mainers on active duty and speaking with top military and intelligence officials in the region.

“Senator [Ron] Wyden [D-Ore.] and I met with General [George] Casey [commander of forces in Iraq] and several of the Iraqi deputy ministers,” she said by satellite phone. “We discussed the conduct of the war and the discussions to form a new government.”

Both Wyden and Snowe serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Both senators received briefings on secret and sensitive information about the war and the efforts to establish a stable government.

Snowe, on her first trip to Iraq, and Wyden attended a “town meeting” at Camp Liberty near the Baghdad Airport to hear from soldiers from their states on Saturday.

“There were members of the 152nd Maintenance Company, about 125 to 130 of them,” she said, “as well as some Oregon soldiers, and we talked with them for about 45 minutes.”

Snowe met with the Maine soldiers in the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the troops have been on security duty since arriving in Iraq. Traveling to the camp was an experience she won’t forget, the senator said. She said she wore an armored vest and helmet while traveling in armored vehicles.

“I got some appreciation of what it must be like to wear one of these in the summer when temperatures get up to 120 degrees,” she said. “It is fortified, to say the least. It reminds you of the risks the soldiers and others that work here, like those from the embassy, take just being here in Baghdad.”

Snowe said she saw several bunkers with “duck-and-cover” signs. They are there to provide cover from explosions and the flying glass and debris that is common when car bombs are detonated just outside the fortified zone, she said.

While she and Wyden were in Baghdad, a bomb exploded outside the city and killed seven and wounded two dozen others. The increased violence last week nearly led to the trip’s being canceled.

Snowe said she had tried twice before to get to Iraq, but had the trips canceled because of heightened levels of violence.

“They limit the number of visits like this because of the need for more security,” she said. “But I am glad that I did get to visit here.”

With the United States expected to hand off more responsibility for security to the Iraqi government, this year is important to the transition process, Snowe said. Some of the briefings described the progress of that effort.

Maj. Gen. Bill Libby, Maine’s adjutant general, visited Iraq and the 152nd last fall. At that time and again on Friday, he was critical of the use of the highly trained maintenance troops for security duty.

“They were frustrated when I was there and made that clear to me,” he said. “They trained for one mission and ended up doing a different one.”

Libby said the unit had some of “the best” vehicle maintenance experts in the state. He expected they would be used to keep the heavily used military vehicles in repair, but instead they were used for security and as prison guards.

“Some of them were working at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison while I was there,” he said.

Snowe said while the Maine troops were not doing what they trained for, they have adapted to the new assignment.

“It’s just like Mainers to be given a new task and to adapt to that mission and to do it superbly,” she said.

The 152nd is scheduled to leave Baghdad early next month. Snowe said the soldiers made it clear they will be happy to be coming home.

Snowe and Wyden were scheduled to visit a military hospital north of Baghdad on Sunday and meet with some additional soldiers from their home states. They planned to helicopter to the city of Kirkuk about 200 miles north of Baghdad on Sunday.