On 17 Nov 2005 11:05:11 -0800, "The Lone Weasel"
<loneweasel@gmail.com> wrote:

The New York Times
November 17, 2005
Influential House Democrat Wants Immediate Iraq Withdrawal
By DAVID STOUT

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 ***** 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."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/politics/17cnd-military.html?hp