Murtha transcript: The only people who want us in Iraq are Iran, al Qaeda and China
RAW STORY
Published: March 5, 2006
FULL TRANSCRIPT from an interview between CBS News and Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) on Sunday's Face the Nation. Video here
Snippet from transcript of entire interview:
What should we be doing about Iran right now?
REP. MURTHA: Let me tell you, Bob, that's the problem we have. One of the reasons I spoke out after trying to do this privately -- and for years and years I've done everything behind the scenes, tried not to speak publicly about many of these things, trying to give advice to the president. But here, we have a situation where our military's in such bad shape it couldn't deploy to a second front and the Iranians know this. This is not something I'm telling the Iranians. North Korea knows it. China knows it. We're depleting our resources in Iraq, which is a civil war.
We should redeploy out of there and re-do the Army, re-do our military so that we can prevent a war, so that we can say to Iran look fellas, you know, you have to be very careful about what you do because we can use military force.
MR. SCHIEFFER: But I guess the one thing that worries me about it -- if we just left, isn't it going to send a signal that they're going to take this to mean that they've defeated us? And won't that just give them -- won't their morale go up and cause them to try us in another place, perhaps here?
REP. MURTHA: Yes, I know that's the common theory because that's the fear that they try to sell to the American people. I don't see that at all. There was no terrorism in Iraq before at all. The Iraqis have to settle this themselves. This is not a we thing, this is a them thing. They've got a government now and they have to settle it. No matter how complicated it is, they have to sit down, figure out what needs to be done and settle this civil war themselves. There'll be some fighting, but the al Qaeda -- the thing that we're worried about worldwide, the threat we're worried about in the United States -- will disappear because the Iraqis do not like them. It's just that they put up with them because we have become occupiers and we've united everybody against us
Transcript of interview at:
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Murtha_transcript_The_only_people_who_0305.html