Congressman calling for troops to pull out of Iraq

Yawu Miller

With a majority of U.S. and Iraqi citizens in favor of a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, President Bush has yet to declare a date for withdrawal.

Congressman Michael Capuano isn’t waiting for Bush’s decision. After spending two days in Iraq two weeks ago, the 8th Congressional District representative is calling on Bush to begin withdrawal of troops by February 15.

“By February, we’ll have two different legislative bodies elected in Iraq,” he said. “If we don’t know if they’re capable of embracing democracy by then, we’ll never know.”

Capuano’s call comes as Melvin Laird, former aide to president Richard Nixon, called on Bush to withdraw troops, drawing parallels between the Iraqi conflict and the Vietnam War.

“It’s amazing to me that we’ve reached the same conclusion,” Capuano said of Laird’s call for withdrawal.

Laird and Capuano’s calls are part of a growing chorus of public policy experts and peace activists calling for U.S. withdrawal. Unlike Laird, Capuano has opposed the war from day one. While the Bush administration has cast the war as part of its war on terrorism, Capuano notes that the pre-invasion Iraqi government played no role in any terrorist actions against the United States.

Capuano has also argued that the war has diverted much-needed funds away from domestic spending priorities. According to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit that provides information on government spending, the United States has so far spent $203 billion on the war.

More than two years after Bush declared “mission accomplished” in the Iraq war aboard a U.S. warship off the coast of California, more than 2000 U.S. servicemen have been killed in addition to 198 soldiers from other coalition countries. A survey of media reports conducted by an anti-war group has estimated the total number of Iraqi civilian deaths at between 26,000 and 30,000.

With media scrutiny focused on the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and the role in that debacle played by Irv Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, public support for the war and President Bush seem to be eroding. In a poll conducted in June, six in ten U.S. citizens favored withdrawing troops from Iraq.

The increased scrutiny on the vice president’s chief of staff and his role in the administration’s push for war will not likely win the Bush administration more support for the war.

Yet Bush has neither set a date for withdrawing troops from Iraq nor outlined specific goals to be met for a troop withdrawal, Capuano notes. With no end is sight, Capuano set his February deadline.

“I’d get the troops out now,” he said. “I think everything is in place. But since the president won’t say when, I’ll say it for him. It should be before February 15.

Capuano says that while the Republican leadership is standing in support of the president, rank-and-file Republicans are beginning to shift away from supporting the war. But ultimately, he says, no anti-war resolutions will make it to the floor for a vote without support of the leadership.