A visibly pregnant Angelina Jolie told the Council on Foreign Relations that education is the best way to help the plight of Iraqi child refugees in a speech in Washington D.C. on Tuesday.

"It is a fact that the best way to heal children in conflict and their trauma is to focus their minds on their future," she told the crowd, which included Gen. David Petraeus.

"This population we're talking about is the future of Iraq," she added. "So to reach them now, to help deal with their trauma and refocus their minds on a possible future should absolutely be one of our top priorities.

"We need these kids ... to rebuild their country, to stabilize their country and eventually lead their country."

Jolie, 32 — who has gone to Iraq twice in the past year — said children there "are desperate for an education."

During a trip to a Burmese refugee camp, she recalled how a group of teens - many of whom have dropped out of school due to the conflict — begged her for grammar books, dictionaries and pens.

“We need them to grow up and be doctors and lawyers and engineers and teachers,” she said. “We need them to rebuild their country, stabilize their countries and eventually lead their countries.”

The actress did not address the question of the U.S.’ long term to Iraq but said "the surge does not just mean it works if you get numbers of violence down.

"It works if humanitarian aide is starting to increase and changes are able to be made."

Her trip to the nation's capital wasn't all work.

On Monday, Jolie — in town for an event honoring Mariane Pearl — took her sons, Maddox, 6, and Pax, 4, to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.