When the spending bill came to the House floor yesterday, lawmakers on both sides of the intense, heated debate exhorted their colleagues to think of the troops. Antiwar forces pleaded to bring them home, while supporters of the Iraq war accused their colleagues of damaging the morale of American servicemen and women.
"Think about the message we have sent them: We have undermined their efforts, lowered their morale, and clearly sent the wrong message" by fighting with the White House over the bill for more than three months, said the House minority leader, John Boehner , Republican of Missouri.
In a tearful speech on the House floor, Boehner recalled the thousands killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and said the United States needed to win the war in Iraq. "If we don't stand up now, and we don't have the courage to defeat the enemy, we will regret it," he said.
Representative John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who voted to authorize the Iraq invasion but has since become one of his party's most vocal war opponents, challenged his fellow House members to see the deteriorating situation in Iraq and move US troops out of harm's way.
"We're trying to change direction. We're trying to win this war," shouted Murtha, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, during the floor debate. "You can't win if you don't look at it objectively."
A New York Times-CBS News poll released yesterday indicated that 76 percent of Americans, including a majority of Republican voters, think the war is going badly, and 61 percent said the United States should never have started the conflict.
