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Influential House Democrat Wants Immediate Iraq Withdrawal
By DAVID STOUT
11/17/05 "New
York Times" -- --
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - An influential House Democrat called the Iraq
campaign "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion" today as he called
for the immediate withdrawal of United States troops.
"It is time for a change in direction," Representative John Murtha
of Pennsylvania, the leading Democrat on the House Appropriations
Committee's defense subcommittee, said as the debate over the war
intensified by the hour. "Our military is suffering, the future of
our country is at risk."
Mr. Murtha, a conservative who voted in 2002 for the resolution
authorizing use of force in Iraq and who supported the Persian Gulf
war in 1991, called for "the immediate redeployment of American
forces."
"It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the
best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or
the Persian Gulf region," Mr. Murtha said during an emotional news
conference on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Murtha, a 73-year-old Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam combat,
lashed back at Vice President Dick Cheney, who in a speech to a
conservative group on Wednesday night condemned critics of the Iraq
war. "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from
losing their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit
by and let them rewrite history," Mr. Cheney said in an address to
the group, Frontiers of Freedom, in Washington.
Mr. Murtha was disdainful of the vice president's remarks, saying
that "people with five deferments" had no right to make such
remarks. Mr. Cheney, like millions of other young men of the era,
avoided military service during the Vietnam war.
Mr. Murtha's remarks were termed "reprehensible and irresponsible"
by a Republican member of the Appropriation's defense subcommittee,
Representative Kay Granger of Texas.
"It shows the Democratic Party has chosen a policy of retreat and
defeatism which will only encourage the terrorists and threaten the
stability of Iraq," she said, according to The Associated Press.
House Republicans were expected to issue a general denunciation of
Mr. Murtha this afternoon.
Mr. Murtha's demeanor and personal history as well as his status on
the Appropriations Committee may lend extra weight to his words. He
generally shuns publicity and does not often speak on the House
floor.
After serving in the Marines in the early 1950's, he re-enlisted in
1966, at the age of 34, and served in Vietnam, earning a Bronze
Star, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry,
according to The Almanac of American Politics. When he won his House
seat in a special election in February 1974 he became the first
Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress.
Mr. Cheney's speech came a day after the Senate overwhelmingly
passed a resolution calling for the Bush administration to make
regular progress reports on the war and for 2006 to be a "transition
year" in which the Iraqis will assume responsibility for security of
their own country.
The vice president's assertions that some politicians want to
rewrite history was aimed at those who voted in 2002 to authorize
force against Saddam Hussein but have more recently become critics
of Iraq campaign, charging that the Bush administration manipulated
pre-war intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by the old
Baghdad regime.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Mr.
Cheney's speech of Wednesday night as well as President Bush's
recent remarks on Iraq show that they have "shamlessly decided to
play politics."
"We're at war," Mr. Reid said. "We need a commander in chief, not a
campaigner in chief."
At his Capitol news conference, Mr. Murtha became emotional as he
spoke of hospital visits to wounded troops. "What demoralizes them
is going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the
transition to peace," he said.
"Our troops have become the primary target for the insurgency," Mr.
Murtha said. Insurgents, he said, "are united against U.S. forces,
and we have become a catalyst for violence." He went on to say that,
before the Iraqi elections in December, the country's people and its
emerging government "must be put on notice that the United States
will immediately redeploy."
"All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free," he said. "Free from
United States occupation."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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