Rep. Michael Michaud visited Iraq last week where insurgents continued to attack the American Embassy in Baghdad.

Although the Bush administration has touted recent security improvements, the Green Zone – the massive area in Baghdad that houses the U.S. Embassy – was shelled during Michaud’s trip.

He said during one meeting inside the embassy security guards hustled him into a hallway away from the windows as shells landed.

The next day he met with Army Corps of Engineers officials and two shells hit the Green Zone.

“There’s still a lot of concern,” he said.

Michaud and the lawmakers received a briefing at a weapons depot where Iraqi soldiers swap their AK-47 machine guns for M-16 machine guns. The AK-47s are given to Iraqi police officers. But soldiers are fingerprinted, eye-scanned and photographed so the military has a record of who has which weapon.

Michaud flew to Iraq late Thursday evening from Andrews Air Force base outside Washington, D.C., with Reps. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., Todd Platts, R-Kan., and Steve Chabot, R-Ohio.

The plane stopped to refuel in Ireland and then they flew to Jordan before going to Baghdad. On the return, the lawmakers stopped in Brussels to meet with NATO officials.

It was Michaud’s first trip to Iraq. He plans to return in August to study health care issues affecting U.S. troops.