Prominent Democrats announce major Iraq initiatives

'Concrete moves' to help US exit Iraq

Michael RostonPublished: Wednesday January 17, 2007

Two prominent Democrats, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, announced major moves on Iraq late on Wednesday afternoon. Both were heavily critical of the policy of escalation and one proposed concrete moves to end US involvement in the country while highlighting the escalating human and economic costs of a war that the White House now seeks to escalate.

The text of legislation sponsored by Rep. Murtha sent to RAW STORY would rapidly "redeploy US forces from Iraq." House Joint Resolution 73 had 75 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, and would terminate the deployment of US forces in Iraq at the "earliest practicable date." The bill also called for "A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines" to remain deployed in the region, and for the US to "pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy."

The text of the Joint Resolution sent to RAW STORY slyly scratched out earlier estimates to emphasize the loss of lives and money engendered by the conflict. It first pointed out that $277 billion had been appropriated by Congress for the Iraq war, and scratched this out in red lettering to replace it with the higher figure of $471 billion. Similarly the bill pointed out that 3,024 US troops have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, scratching out the earlier figures of 2,079 and 3,020 fatalities.

Senator Barack Obama meanwhile issued a statement saying that he would not approve of a policy to increase the number of troops in Iraq. "I cannot in good conscience support this plan. As I first said two months ago, we should not be sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, we should begin redeploying them to let the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever and to pressure the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to finally reach a political settlement," the popular Democratic Senator said.

He believed that "It now falls on Congress to find a way to support our troops in the field while still preventing the President from multiplying his previous mistakes." For this reason, he expressed his support for capping the number U.S. troops in Iraq, and added that "it’s imperative that we begin the phased redeployment I called for two months ago, and [I] intend to introduce legislation that does just that.”

Calls earlier in the day from RAW STORY seeking further clarification of Obama's plans on Iraq were not returned.

A screenshot of Murtha's bill is presented below. To view the image in full size, click here.

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