Murtha is da man - calls for immediate troop withdrawal

This is huge. Rep. John Murtha, a former Marine Corps colonel with 37 years of service under his belt, including serving in the Vietnam war, introduced a bill today calling for for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and redeployment within six months. Having come back from a trip to Anbar province, where the "insurgency" is at its worse, he says that the troops have done all that can be militarily accomplished and it's time to light a fire under the Iraq government to get them to take care of themselves.

He also says 80% of the Iraqi people are ready for us to get out of Baghdad and has this to say to White House attempt to smear the patriots who question bad policy.

"I resent the fact that on Veterans Day, they criticized Democrats for criticizing them," Murtha said. "This [the war] is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public knows it, and lashing out at critics doesn't help a bit. You've got to change the policy. That's what's going to help the American people. It's time to change direction."

He endured the usual GOP smear job from draft dodger Hastert among others, and Heretik has the details on his response. Murtha didn't actually say chickenhawk, but the implication was pretty clear.

Meanwhile, Murtha had a lot more to say, but here's the money quote.

U.S. troops "don't deserve to continue to suffer," he said. "We're the targets. We're uniting the enemy against us. And there's terrorism all over the world that there wasn't before we went into Iraq."

Too bad when Bush promised to be uniter he meant, of terrorists instead of the American people.

Murtha says this is own gig; he doesn't speak for the party with this bill. That's too bad because I'm liking this Democrat and I'd like to believe in his party again. They should be supporting him outright and none of this namby-pamby waiting to see what the polls do to him first. This is a time to show some balls, not for balking.