Dems Accuse Pentagon of Scare Tactics

[Collo]

WASHINGTON - In their latest tussle with the White House on the Iraq war, two leading Democrats in the House of Representatives said Tuesday the Pentagon is using scare tactics to try to goad Congress into passing another war spending bill.

Democratic Reps. David Obey and John Murtha said their positions will not change. Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Murtha, head of that panel's Defense Appropriations subcommittee, said they will not support more money for the war this year unless President George W. Bush accepts a timetable for troop withdrawals.

Last week, the House passed a $50 billion bill that would keep operations afloat for several more months but sets a goal of bringing most troops home by December 2008. After Bush threatened to veto the measure, Senate Republicans blocked it.

"If the president wants that $50 billion released, all he has to do is to call the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and ask him to stop blocking it," Obey told reporters.

Obey and Murtha convened the rare recess-week news conference to counter Pentagon reports that the military will have to act drastically next month if it does not get the money soon.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed a memo Friday that ordered the Army to begin planning for a series of expected cutbacks, including the layoffs of as many as 100,000 civilian employees and another 100,000 civilian contractors, starting as early as January.

Obey and Murtha said they calculate the military has enough money to continue operations through March by eating into its $471 billion annual budget.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the military has only limited transfer authority.

"Those who think we have some sort of flexibility here are simply misinformed," Whitman told reporters Tuesday. "We've entered into a very serious period here."

Murtha said the Pentagon was issuing "irresponsible" propaganda.

"They're scaring people," he said. "They're scaring the families of the troops. ... That's the thing that's so despicable."

When asked whether public opinion eventually could turn against Democrats if they hold out too long, Murtha said no, because the Pentagon has destroyed its credibility.

"Go back and look: mission accomplished, al-Qaida connection, weapons of mass destruction," he said. "On and on and on, and you'll believe the Pentagon?"

The two Democrats would not speculate what might happen next year, when Congress returns from its holiday break.

"What happens in February is going to be determined by what the president does in February," Obey said. But "there is no need for the House to keep chewing the same cud over and over again."


This solidifies my claim that the biggest opponent in the War in Iraq has been our own bickering political sects. Imagine how productive things would have been if we did not have to contend with political parties harassing our war effort. If they complain of scare tactics they need a nice cool can of harding the F up. These whining excuses of people have never seen the real world; who are they to complain that when we tell them truth that we are trying to scare them! 

[kiwi]

Go back and look: mission accomplished,

I am glad he think so, would be nice if all the terrorist was was dead adn our threat level was low.

But we all don't live in fairy land. 

[Collo]

This is a long hard fight and we are going to win it however our victory is being made that much more impossible by these soft PC crowd thinkers who are being scared by the truth of this war.