[Mb-civic] Rumsfeld, Murtha Continue War of Words Over Iraq - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Rumsfeld, Murtha Continue War of Words Over Iraq

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 20, 2005; 1:30 PM

The newly energized debate over the war in Iraq continued unabated 
today, as Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) repeated his call for a withdrawal of 
troops while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned that words 
"have effects" on both U.S. troops and the enemy.

President Bush, meanwhile, declined to repeat disparaging comments about 
Murtha made last week by his press secretary, who ridiculed the 
decorated veteran by comparing him to controversial filmmaker Michael Moore.

Speaking in China, Bush said he understood "that the decision to call 
for an immediate withdrawal of our troops by Congressman Murtha was done 
in a careful and thoughtful way. I disagree with his position."

"Congressman Murtha is a fine man," Bush said, "a good man who served 
our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a 
U.S. congressman."

Bush largely left the administration's rebuttal to Rumsfeld, who 
appeared in successive interviews on the network's Sunday talk shows.

"We live in a free country and it's proper for people to raise questions 
and to have views," Rumsfeld said on the Fox News Sunday program. "And 
he [Murtha] does, and that's fair enough." But, he said, "his views were 
not broadly supported in the House or the Senate either by Democrats or 
Republicans."

And, he added, "we also have to understand that our words have effects. 
And put yourself in the shoes of a soldier who thinks that we're going 
to pull out precipitously or immediately, as some people have proposed.

"Obviously, they have to wonder whether what they're doing makes sense 
if that's the idea, if that's the debate," Rumsfeld said. "Put 
yourselves in the shoes of the Iraqi people who've put a great deal at 
risk to run for office, and support the elections, and support the 
constitution, and subject themselves to risk of assassination.

"Put yourself in the shoes of the enemy. The enemy hears a big debate in 
the United States, and they have to wonder maybe all we have to do is 
wait and we'll win. We can't win militarily. They know that. The battle 
is here in the United States."

Rumsfeld made no committments for a significant withdrawal of U.S. 
troops from Iraq next year, sticking to the Pentagon's long-held 
assertion that field commanders will determine when to begin a military 
drawdown.

Citing the Dec. 15 elections in Iraq, Rumsfeld said troop levels would 
remain near 160,000. Depending upon conditions, troops then would return 
to pre-election levels of 138,000 as planned, he said.

Murtha, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, declined to repeat his 
comments chiding Bush and Vice President Cheney for not serving in 
combat and said he wanted to depersonalize the debate.

"It's not me," he said. "It's the public looking for an answer to this 
thing. They want us to solve this problem. They don't want a war of words."

The war in Iraq, he said, was "obviously" a mistake. "All of us were 
misled by the information that we had," he said.

" . . . We have increased terrorism in the Middle East," he said, "and 
since we're the target, we've increased instability in the Middle East. 
So the only way to do this is to redeploy our forces inside and let the 
Iraqis handle this themselves."

Asked if he thought the administration had misled the public, Murtha 
responded: "I wouldn't say that. I don't think that any president would 
mislead the public on the intelligence. They certainly exaggerated, but 
I don't think that they misled us."

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) appearing on Face the Nation, said that 
rather than a lot of "caterwauling, like people coming out of a baseball 
dugout," the country was in need of some real answers.

"We've had votes this week in which we're not going to leave. Both the 
Senate and the House decided that was not appropriate, Democrats and 
Republicans. But the point is, even as we stay, there's going to be 
great anxiety unless we know how we're going to succeed," Lugar said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/20/AR2005112000414.html?nav=hcmodule
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