Murtha: U.S. should leave Iraq and its 'civil war' by year's end

By Associated Press

01/27/06 "AP" -- -- PITTSBURGH - U.S. military involvement in Iraq should wind down by the end of the year, because American troops are trying to fight what is now an Iraqi civil war, U.S. Rep. John Murtha said.

Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran from Johnstown, created a firestorm in November when he called for troops to be pulled out of Iraq. On Thursday, he met with editors and reporters from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"Our troops are the target," Murtha told the newspaper. "We're not fighting terrorism in Iraq. We're fighting a civil war in Iraq. We've got to give them an incentive. We fought our Civil War. Let them fight their civil war."

Murtha, the senior Democrat on the House appropriations defense panel, said many Iraqis think "it's all right to kill Americans" and that most Iraqis want U.S. troops out of the country.

"We're not cutting and running. We're giving the Iraqis incentive to take over," he said.

Murtha, who voted in 2002 to give President Bush the authority to go to war, said he believes Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, had no ties with al-Qaida terrorists and wasn't a threat to the United States.

Murtha believes there are fewer than 1,000 al-Qaida members in Iraq now, and that there were no terrorists in Iraq before the war.

"There is no reason in the world we couldn't do what we're doing (in Iraq) from the periphery," Murtha said. "I've just come to the conclusion it's going to happen and it's just a matter of time."

He want U.S. troops to be redeployed to areas around Iraq, such as in Kuwait. He predicted there will be fewer than 100,000 troops by midsummer and that the pullout by the end of the year will be boosted by election-year pressures.

Murtha also weighed in on other topics during the meeting, saying the United States should use diplomacy in combating the threats Iran poses to Mideast stability. He also said U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., could win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, but that she would lose in the general election.