Editorial: Insider's view / Murtha may also be speaking for the military
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One point not to forget in the exchange of volleys between veteran U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha and President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials on the need to withdraw American forces from Iraq is the congressman's extraordinarily close relationship over the years with senior U.S. military personnel...

...In that context, it is very likely that the advocacy of withdrawal by Mr. Murtha, the congressman who is perhaps closest of all to senior military officers, reflects the considered views of some or many of those in the service's top ranks. Rather than taking themselves out of the game by opposing Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, they may be telling the American public through Mr. Murtha, whom they trust, that it is time for U.S. forces to go home, to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.
If it is unseemly for Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, with their own undistinguished or absent war records, to hammer at Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran with a distinguished record and the trust of American soldiers and veterans, it is especially wrong for them to undercut him when he is likely delivering to them and the public the frank opinion of the war of senior American officers...http://tinyurl.com/a7d8v
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