Democrats escalate pressure to withdraw from Iraq

Pressures escalated on the US President George W. Bush over the situation of the American forces in Iraq. Few days after the US senate adopted a decision calling for accelerating the transfer of security responsibility to the Iraqis to permit reduction of the size of the American forces, the democratic representative in the Congress John Murtha called for the immediate withdrawal for the American army.

Subcommittee on Defense, which Congressman Murtha is currently the ranking Member and former Chairman

Murtha, the leader of the democrats on Subcommittee on Defense, who he previously chaired, said that the US can not achieve more militarily in Iraq, stressing that the withdrawal might take some 6 months.

He said he will discuss a decision that calls for the return back of the American forces in Iraq as soon as circumstances permit, describing the war as bad policy, wrapped with illusions.

Murtha served 37-year career in the US Marine Corps and retired as a colonel. He took part in Vietnam war and has been a Congress member since 1974. He was a confidential consultant for defense affairs for presidents from the Republican and Democratic parties. In the beginning, he supported the invasion decision, but recently criticized Washington's policy in Iraq.

The democratic leader in the senate, Harry Reid, accused the White House of playing poor politics at a times of war in Bush's campaign against his critics over his policy in Iraq. Senateor Edward Kennedy said that President George W. Bush is trading on fears to lead the country to war, and the Bush misled the country into war.

The Republicans responded quickly to criticism addressed to the US President over the Iraqi war. The speaker of the House Dennis Hastert said that Murtha and other democrats among critics of the war prefer the US to surrender to the terrorists of the world. Geoff Davis the republican member at the House said "An arbitrary call for the withdrawal of our troops serves only to embolden our enemies and makes meaningless the sacrifice of American men and women. The universal message I hear from our troops -- from enlisted soldiers to West Point classmates of mine serving in the Middle East -- is that we are making progress. The Democratic leadership has offered no leadership and no solutions, and they are putting politics ahead of policy. Their only statement is, Let’s just run away. We have an obligation to have an ongoing discussion regarding our presence in not only Iraq but in Afghanistan and in other regions where we are fighting the global War on Terror. But this discussion must be sensitive to the needs of our troops and to our overall strategy. To make a blanket call for withdrawal is irresponsible and shameful.”

President Bush and members of his administration criticized along the past days the Democrats who are accused of launching a campaign against justifications he gave for the invasion of Iraq. The critics of Bush repeated their talks on fabricated intelligence information over what is called the banned weapons in Iraq and other information that was wrong.

Worthy mentioning that the last opinion poll carried out by CNN and USA Today daily and Gallop foundation revealed that 63% of the Americans disapprove the way Bush deals with the war on Iraq and 52% find it necessary to withdraw now or within 12 months.

Number of American soldiers currently in Iraq are estimated at 153,000, while number of the US soldiers killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war in 2003 exceeded 2000.