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.
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