House GOP Seeks Quick Veto of Iraq Pullout

House GOP Seeks Quick Veto of Iraq Pullout

Friday November 18, 2005 10:46 PM

By LIZ SIDOTI

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans maneuvered for swift and
overwhelming rejection Friday of a Democratic lawmaker's call for U.S.
troops to be pulled out of Iraq.

Furious, Democrats accused the GOP of orchestrating a political stunt by
leaving little time for debate and by taking the heart out of the
resolution offered by Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania.

For those reasons, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent word to the
rank-and-file to vote - with the Republicans - against immediate
withdrawal of American troops.

``We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in
Iraq and Afghanistan,'' said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. ``We will
not retreat.''

Democrats went to the House floor to denounce the quick vote before
Congress leaves Washington for two weeks.

``This is a personal attack on one of the best members, one of the most
respected members of this House and it is outrageous,'' said Rep. Jim
McGovern, D-Mass.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, responded: ``This is not a stunt. This is not an attack on an
individual. This is a legitimate question.''

GOP leaders decided to act little more than 24 hours after Murtha, a
hawkish Democrat with close ties to the military, said the time had come
to pull out the troops.

By forcing the issue to a vote, Republicans placed many Democrats in a
politically unappealing position - whether to side with Murtha and
expose themselves to attacks from the White House and congressional
Republicans, or whether to oppose him and risk angering the voters that
polls show want an end to the conflict.

Murtha offered a resolution that would force the president to withdraw
the nearly 160,000 troops in Iraq ``at the earliest practicable date.''
It would establish a quick-reaction force and a nearby presence of
Marines in the region. It also said the U.S. must pursue stability in
Iraq through diplomacy.

But House Republicans planned to put to a vote - and reject - their own
resolution that simply said: ``It is the sense of the House of
Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be
terminated immediately.''

With stinging rhetoric, Democrats criticized the GOP alternative. They
said House Republican leaders killed Murtha's thoughtful approach.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., called the move ``nothing short of
disgraceful.'' And Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., yelled on the floor:
``This is not a debate on the Murtha resolution. This is an attempt to
undermine Jack Murtha!''

``It isn't about him, and it isn't about any of us. It's about foreign
policy and national security,'' Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., responded.

Most Republicans oppose Murtha's call for withdrawal, and some Democrats
also have been reluctant to back his position.

Still, a growing number of House members and senators, looking ahead to
off-year elections next November, are publicly worrying about a quagmire
in Iraq. They have been staking out new positions on a war that is
increasingly unpopular with the American public, has resulted in more
than 2,000 U.S. military deaths and has cost more than $200 billion.

The House move comes just days after the GOP-controlled Senate defeated
a Democratic push for Bush to lay out a timetable for withdrawal.
Spotlighting questions from both parties about the war, though, the
chamber then approved a statement that 2006 should be a significant year
in which conditions are created for the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces.

``Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency,'' Murtha
said Thursday. ``They are united against U.S. forces and we have become
a catalyst for violence. The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It
is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.''

A U.S. field commander in Iraq countered the position of the congressman
who usually backs the Pentagon.

``Here on the ground, our job is not done,'' said Col. James Brown,
commander of the 56th Brigade Combat Team, when asked about Murtha's
comments during a weekly briefing that American field commanders give to
Pentagon reporters.

Speaking Friday from a U.S. logistics base at Balad, north of Baghdad,
two days before his scheduled return to Texas, Brown said: ``We have to
finish the job that we began here. It's important for the security of
this nation.''

Republicans chastised Murtha for advocating what they called a strategy
of surrender and abandonment. Democrats defended him as a patriot, even
as many declined to back his view.

``I won't stand for the swift-boating of Jack Murtha,'' said Sen. John
Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Also a Vietnam
veteran, Kerry was dogged during the campaign by a group called the
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who challenged his war record.

``There is no sterner stuff than the backbone and courage that defines
Jack Murtha's character and conscience,'' Kerry said.

For his part, Kerry has proposed a phased exit from Iraq, starting with
the withdrawal of 20,000 troops after December elections in Iraq. A
Kerry spokesman said ``he has his own plan'' when asked if Kerry agreed
with immediate withdrawal.

As a Vietnam veteran and top Democrat on the House Appropriations
defense subcommittee, Murtha carries more credibility with his
colleagues on the issue than a number of other Democrats who have
opposed the war from the start.

With a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, Murtha retired from the Marine
Corps reserves as a colonel in 1990 after 37 years as a Marine, only a
few years longer than he's been in Congress. Elected in 1974, Murtha has
become known as an authority on national security whose advice was
sought out by Republican and Democratic administrations alike.

=========