One year ago, John Murtha was wrong – time for an apology?

On Nov. 20, 2005, on “Meet the Press,” Congressman John Murtha predicted that, in spite of President Bush’s rejection of a timetable for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, Bush himself would withdraw most of the troops by November 2006 for political reasons.

This was three days after Murtha made his infamous call for redeploying -- that is, withdrawing -- all U.S. troops within six months.

“It’s time to bring the troops home... ” he said last Nov. 17. “I think that you get them out of there in six months.”

It was on “Meet the Press” that Murtha said Bush was willing to abandon the liberation of Iraq solely to save the Republican Party:

Tim Russert: You think we’ll be out of Iraq by the end of 2006?

Murtha: I think we’ll be out of there; if not completely out of there, we’ll be very close to being out of there. I think we could be out -- yeah, I predict we’ll be out of there – it’ll be 2006.

Russert: By Election Day 2006?

Murtha: You have hit it on the head.

Election Day 2006 is tomorrow. Obviously, Murtha was wrong. He was wrong to think we could have withdrawn all U.S. troops six months ago without a disaster. He also was wrong to accuse Bush of cynicism enough to lose the war to win an election.

If Murtha had any integrity, he would count the 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, call the president and apologize.

Frank Warner