ALEX CHADWICK, host:
This is DAY TO DAY. I'm Alex Chadwick at NPR West.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand in Las Vegas, site of last night's Democratic presidential debate. Once again, the Iraq war was a big issue. Here is the mother of a vet from the public questioning part of the debate,
I finally got my son home after three tours of policing Iraq's civil war. Now, members of the Bush administration and neo-conservative members of Congress are beating the drums of war again.
CHADWICK: The Senate today blocked the action on a bill that would link new funding for the war to a troop withdraw. The Congressional debate about the war goes on.
BRAND: This weekend will mark two years since one Pennsylvania representative made big news by switching sides on the war debate. His name is John Martha, and here is some of what he had to say then.
Representative JOHN MURTHA (Pennsylvania, Democrat): We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people, or the Persian Gulf region.
CHADWICK: Congressman Murtha has become a leader in the war debate with all that has happened since then - the rise in horrific violence, the development of the surge strategy to reassert control, and the congressional elections last year that swung power back to the Democrats.
We spoke with Congressman Murtha yesterday. Despite the Democrats' inability to turn off the war, he insists that his call to get out remains the best choice for now.
Rep. MURTHA: Well, I think everything that I predicted has come true. If you look at Pakistan, if you look at Afghanistan, if you look at Turkey, and even in Iraq, we have tremendous instability. And so I haven't changed my mind a bit. I continue to work trying to make sure that the military has everything they need, but on the other hand that we try to redeploy our troops out of Iraq as soon as we can, as long as it's with safety.
CHADWICK: So the surge has not changed your thinking at all, because we've seen many reports that security conditions in Iraq are better, and at least some reports that the infrastructure is also improving now. So things indeed may be getting better.
Rep. MURTHA: Well, we hope that that's true. One of the things that I have seen, the national government has not stepped up. They haven't made the changes in legislation that they need to make.
CHADWICK: The Iraqi government, you mean?
Rep. MURTHA: That's right, the Iraqi government. This surge was supposed to signal to the Iraqis, here's a chance for you to be able to step up and do the reconstruction that's necessary, to do the change in legislation that's necessary, and they haven't done that.
CHADWICK: You and your colleagues in the House this week passed an Iraq war funding bill that is much less than President Bush wants and it includes a deadline to get most of the troops out by the end of next year. How do you explain the failure of Congressional Democrats, now in the majority, over the last year to do better with the war?
Rep. MURTHA: Well, over and over again we gave the president what he needed, but there was no oversight. The president almost treated the Congress like it was incidental, not as a separate branch of government which provides the money. We have a responsibility to the taxpayers...
CHADWICK: But Congressman, the Democrats have not passed a bill that says we're going to stop the war now, on this date. They haven't done what you wanted to do.
Rep. MURTHA: Well, we have passed in the House seven different versions of a bill that would change the direction of the war in Iraq. The Senate's had a difficult time. The Republicans in the Senate have filibustered against or the president has vetoed the bill.
CHADWICK: Your own political fortunes, Congressman, have been rising. You're now in the leadership among Democrats in Congress. I don't believe and I'm not saying at all that that's why you spoke out about the war, but I do wonder how you regard this politically now.
Rep. MURTHA: I've been on the Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations for 27 years. I was concerned that there weren't weapons of mass destruction, but I believed the administration and the intelligence and I voted for the war. Then as a matter of conscience, after two and a half years of trying to get the administration to pay attention, as a matter of conscience I decided.
And let me tell you something, I've been involved in every foreign policy decision that was made in the Congress of the United States. I do what I think is right. This to me is a real passion. I feel so strongly, that's the reason I spoke out, and I think the public understood that. The public understood that I was speaking because here is a person who, when I went to Iraq I saw they were short on body arm, I saw they're short on Humvees, short on people. We went in with inadequate forces. The goal is victory, but what's the plan to get to the victory?
CHADWICK: Democratic Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania, two years after he first called for an end to the Iraq war. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
