Pro-military Democrat calls for U.S. to bring troops home

Raising the temperature in Congress over U.S. policy in Iraq, a pro-military Democrat who once voted to back the war now says it is time to bring the troops home. "Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency," U.S. Rep. John 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."

As a Vietnam veteran and top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee with close ties to many military officers, the 30-year Pennsylvania lawmaker carries more credibility with his colleagues on the issue than a number of other Democrats who have opposed the war from the start.

"Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty," Murtha told reporters at a news conference with a half-dozen U.S. flags behind him.

"It's time to bring them home," he said. Rep. Sam Johnson, a Texas Republican and a 29-year Air Force veteran who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for nearly seven years, called Murtha's position unconscionable and irresponsible. "We've got to support our troops to the hilt and see this mission through," he said.

"They want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Repubican.

Referring to U.S. President George W. Bush, Murtha said, "I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, he criticized Democrats for criticizing them."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, with Bush in South Korea for a meeting with Asian leaders, said the administration was "baffled" by his stance.

The Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday defeated a Democratic push for Bush to lay out a timetable for withdrawal. Spotlighting mushrooming 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.

Murtha estimated that all U.S. troops could be pulled out within six months. He introduced a resolution Thursday that would force the president to call back the military, but it was unclear when, or if, either Republican-run chamber of Congress would vote on it.

On the Senate floor Thursday, Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, called on Bush and the White House to stop what he called an orchestrated attack campaign.

"It's a weak, spineless display of politics at a time of war," said Reid, who spoke while Bush was in Asia.

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, reports the AP. I.L.