Text 17014, 79 rader
Skriven 2006-01-05 21:27:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Murtha
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http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/05/D8EUPP1O3.html

Gen. Pace Criticizes Sen. Murtha Remark
Jan 05 5:24 PM US/Eastern


By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer


WASHINGTON


A Democratic congressman's remarks about the military are damaging to 
troop morale and to the Army's efforts to rebound from a recruiting 
slump, the nation's top general said Thursday. 

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked at a 
Pentagon news conference to comment on remarks by Rep. John Murtha, D- 
Pa., a Marine Corps veteran who has become a leading voice in Congress 
advocating an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Pace was asked 
specifically about an ABC News interview this week in which Murtha, 73, 
said if he were eligible to join the military today he would not, nor 
would he expect others to join. 

 

"That's damaging to recruiting," Pace said. "It's damaging to morale of 
the troops who are deployed, and it's damaging to the morale of their 
families who believe in what they are doing to serve this country." 

Pace called the news conference to discuss his weeklong trip to Iraq and 
elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region. He said he found good troop morale 
and a "quiet confidence" that U.S. efforts in Iraq were on the right 
track. He added that Murtha's comments were among the first things he 
heard about upon returning Tuesday. 

Military officers usually are reluctant to get drawn into political 
debates, but Pace said Murtha's remarks about recruiting are relevant to 
his responsibilities as Joint Chiefs chairman. 

Pace praised the congressman's record but criticized his remarks. 

"When a respected leader like Mr. Murtha, who has spent 37 extremely 
honorable years as a Marine, fought in two wars, has served the country 
extremely well in the Congress of the United States _ when a respected 
individual like that says what he said, and 18- and 19-year- olds look 
to their leadership to determine how they are expected to act, they can 
get the wrong message," Pace said. 

Aides at Murtha's Johnstown, Pa., office did not immediately return a 
call for comment. 

Pace also predicted that the Saddam Hussein loyalists and other Iraqis 
who comprise the great bulk of the insurgency will increasingly give up, 
now that Iraq has approved its own constitution and held elections. 

Pace said he believes the violence, which flared anew Thursday on one of 
the bloodiest days in Iraq in months, will abate as more Iraqis become 
convinced that the December elections will produce a representative 
government that will improve their lives. 

"As they see their own government providing a way ahead that all of 
their citizens can understand as progress for their country, ... those 
who are fighting against the government right now who are Iraqis will 
more and more lay down their arms and decide to become part of the 
future of Iraq and not the past," Pace said. 

In describing the continuing violence, Pace pointedly referred to 
terrorists and the al-Qaida network, rather than the anti-government 
Iraqis who are believed to comprise more than 90 percent of the 
insurgency. 

"I do believe that over the course of the coming year that violence will 
subside," he said.


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