Murtha On MTP 
He predicts that, despite the Republican "outrage," we'll be out of Iraq by the 2006 elections.
The guy makes such clear, sober sense. He obviously needs to work over some Democrats, but I think he's pretty damn persuasive. We're looking at the guy that's going to get us out of Iraq.
Some quotes below in the meantime...
I'll tell you why it's different. It's different because there's no progress at all. The commanders say what they're supposed to say, but I can tell how discouraged they are. This all started with the illusion of how easy it would be.
Since we've become the enemy, I don't think it will work. Since they're attacking our troops and we're destabilizing the area, I've changed my mind and come to the conclusion now's the time to start to redeploy our troops to the periphery and let the Iraqis take over.
TR: But if we did withdraw, it could result in a civil war or a bloodbath.
JM: I'm not sure of that. At one time, I thought that... The Iraqis are going to let us do the fighting until we turn it over to them.
On Dem "tepid response" to Murtha:
JM: Not a party issue, something I'm offering as an individual. Let me predict this: we're gonna be out there, we're gonna be out of the pretty quickly. And it's going to be close to the plan I'm offering.
TR: You think we'll be out of Iraq be the end of 2006?
JM: I think we'll be out of there, if not completely...yeah, I predict we'll be out of there by 2006.
TR: By election day 2006?
JM: You've hit it on the head.
TR: In hindsight, was your vote on Iraq a mistake?
JM: Obviously it was a mistake. All of us were misled...when Iraq didn't use WMD, and we didn't find them, I knew it was a mistake.
KEYWORDS: John Murtha, Iraq
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