US lawmakers reject immediate Iraq pullout
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-19 15:39

The US House on Friday overwhelmingly rejected calls for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, a vote engineered by Republicans that was intended to fail. Democrats derided the vote as a political stunt.

"Our troops have become the enemy. We need to change direction in Iraq," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Democratic hawk whose call a day earlier for pulling out troops sparked a nasty, personal debate over the war.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert holds a press conference with other House GOP members to summarize GOP efforts before Thanksgiving recess on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2005. [AP]

The House voted 403-3 to reject a nonbinding resolution offered by the GOP calling for the military to pull out of Iraq.

"We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said as the Republican leadership pushed the issue to a vote over the protest of Democrats.

Like most Democrats, Murtha voted against the measure. Murtha said it was not the thoughtful approach he said he had suggested to bring the troops safely home in six months.

It was the second time in less than a week that President Bush's Iraq policy stirred heated debate in Congress. On Tuesday, the Senate defeated a Democratic push for Bush to lay out a timetable for withdrawal. Instead, it adopted a statement that 2006 should be a year of significant transition in Iraq.

"Congress in strong, bipartisan fashion rejected the call to cut and run," press secretary Scott McClellan, traveling with Bush in Asia, said a statement. Earlier Friday, Bush had called an immediate troop withdrawal "a recipe for disaster."

Murtha, a Marine veteran decorated for combat service in Vietnam, issued his call for a troop withdrawal at a news conference on Thursday. In little more than 24 hours, Hastert and Republicans decided to put the question to the House.

Republicans hoped to place Democrats in an unappealing position — either supporting a withdrawal that critics said would be precipitous or opposing it and angering voters who want an end to the conflict. They also hoped the vote could restore GOP momentum on an issue — the war — that has seen plummeting public support in recent weeks.