Kerry, whose botched joke about U.S. troops in Iraq dealt a blow to his presidential ambitions, will travel to Iraq to meet with soldiers, political leaders and military officials. "I've talked to plenty of guys who've come back from Iraq, who are there now, who understand exactly what happened," Kerry said of his joke in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. "They laugh at it." The Iraq stop will be part of a nine-day Mideast trip that includes stops in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel.