DENVER—Colorado Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave said Thursday the Iraqi military needs to step up “in a big way” so U.S. troops can pull back from the front lines of the war.
“I want to see the Iraqi military provide their own security and begin providing relief for our troops,” Musgrave said as President Bush went on TV to announce gradual troop reductions.
Bush said 5,700 U.S. forces would be home by Christmas and that at least 21,500 troops would return by July, along with an undetermined number of support forces. He rejected calls to end the U.S. presence in Iraq.
Musgrave stopped short of directly criticizing the plan but said, “Our mission needs to transition away from being a front-line force to a supporting role.”
She had been a supporter of the war but said last month she had grown discouraged by its progress.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., called Bush’s drawdown plan unacceptable.
Perlmutter said the 2006 elections that gave Democrats control of Congress were a signal that voters wanted at least some of the 130,000 troops in Iraq at the time to come home.
“Instead, in 2007, the president raised the troop level to 160,000 with his surge, and now thinks a reduction to the same pre-surge levels is progress,” Perlmutter said.
He said that amounted to “smoke-and-mirror tactics.”
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., also criticized Bush’s plan.
“The clock is running out on the president’s failed war strategy,” she said. “I cannot support any plan that weakens our commitment to timelines and benchmarks that will bring our troops home and end this war quickly and responsibly.”
Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat who is running for the Senate, said Bush’s speech showed he “is still in denial about the need for a dramatic shift in strategy.”
Udall said leaving 130,000 troops in Iraq will result in too many deaths and injuries in a war that he said is not making America safer.
