Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) plans to introduce a congressional resolution today in the U.S. House of Representatives calling on President Bush to begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Woolsey, who is in her seventh term in the House, told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Removing some 130,000 soldiers from Iraq immediately is not logistically feasible, but we must take the first steps. We should not abandon Iraq; there is still a critical role for the United States in providing the development aid that can help create a civil society, support education and rebuild Iraq’s economic infrastructure. But the military option is clearly not working. It is truly time to support the troops, by bringing them home as soon as realistically possible.”

MICHAEL HOFFMAN
Co-founder and national coordinator of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Hoffman said today: “It’s good to see this brought up in official legislation. Many say it’s a disservice to the troops who have died to withdraw from Iraq. But what’s more of a disservice — learn from your mistakes or continue to throw lives away? The occupation is the biggest obstacle to Iraq’s rebuilding. As long as the Iraqis are occupied, few are going to work along with the U.S. forces, and those that do will be seen as collaborators. We should not cut and run, we should leave militarily. We still owe it to the Iraqis to help them rebuild, but the military is not equipped to do that. And we should hold ourselves to leaving now and not drag it out citing logistics. The administration is trying to have an Iraqi government while maintaining U.S. control. When I left Iraq in May 2003, they were building permanent military bases.”
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MIKE GRAVEL
While in the U.S. Senate, Gravel entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He said today: “Staying increases the number of American lives lost. The sooner we pull out, the sooner the Iraqis can really determine their own destiny. Staying doesn’t make us safer…” Gravel is currently chairman of the Democracy Foundation.
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HOWARD ZINN
Zinn, a noted historian, is available for a limited number of interviews. He said today: “Our presence in Iraq is a disaster for the American people and an even bigger disaster for the Iraqi people. Two years into the U.S. escalation in Vietnam, in the spring of 1967, a book of mine was published called Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal. It was the first book on the war to urge an immediate departure from Southeast Asia, and at that time I heard the same arguments against withdrawal that we are hearing now. The United States did not pull out its troops for six more years. In those years at least a million more Vietnamese were killed, and perhaps 30,000 U.S. military. We must stay in Iraq, it is said again and again, so that we can bring stability and democracy to that country. Isn’t it clear that after almost two years of war and occupation we have brought only chaos, violence, and death to that country? Can democracy be nurtured by destroying cities, by bombing, by driving people from their homes?” Zinn is the author of A People’s History of the United States and Terrorism and War.
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FRANK BRODHEAD
Brodhead is co-author (with Edward S. Herman) of the book Demonstration Elections: U.S.-Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador and wrote the recent article “Reframing the Iraq Election.” He said today: “When President Bush refuses to discuss a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, or links U.S. withdrawal to political and security benchmarks rather than to the calendar, or when U.S. general Tommy Franks states that U.S. troops will be in Iraq for at least 10 years, we should discard any assumptions that the United States will leave Iraq voluntarily unless and until its economic and military goals are secure. U.S. control of Iraq would be a stupendous achievement for the Bush administration and will not be lightly abandoned.”
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MATT ROTHSCHILD
Editor of the Progressive magazine, Rothschild said today: “There’s no way the United States can clean up the mess. The pyromaniac doesn’t make a good firefighter, and Bush is a pyromaniac here. There’s been a lot of talk about these elections being a turning point, but there’s not going to be a turning point here. We have always been told there’s a turning point. When Saddam’s sons were killed, that was a turning point. When Saddam was caught, that was a turning point. When Fallujah was retaken, or Najaf, or when Bremer left, all those were deemed ‘turning points.’ There’s not going to be a turning point until the United States turns around and leaves.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167