Murtha: Post-Withdrawal Bloodbath Would Not Be Congress's Fault

By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Staff Writer

If pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq results in "a bloodbath," the guilt will rest with the Iraqi people and not with the U.S. Congress, according to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a leading proponent of withdrawing troops.

"Many have threatened that there will be chaos, a bloodbath, when the United States redeploys from Iraq, and this in fact may be the case," Murtha said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Monday. "If they continue to choose to spill blood, it will not be on the conscience of the United States.

"Murtha said ethnic violence in Iraq would be "a continuation of decades of its own conflicts, which they and they alone can solve.

""The fact that Rep. Murtha acknowledged that leaving Iraq in chaos would lead to genocide but then says it wouldn't be our fault is striking," Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), told Cybercast News Service.

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