Murtha Tries To Back Away From Positive Surge Comments

He’s moving the goal posts to the “there’s been no political progress” mantra.

On Friday, however, Murtha’s office moved to clarify his seemingly positive take on the surge, this time putting it in the context of renewed criticism of the administration.
“The military surge has created a window of opportunity for the Iraqi government,” Murtha’s statement read. “Unfortunately, the sacrifice of our troops has not been met by the Iraqi government and they have failed to capitalize on the political and diplomatic steps that the surge was designed to provide.
“The fact remains that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily, and that we must begin an orderly redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as practicable.”

The problem here is that the “surge” was just a step in a process. First we reduced violence so that second our troops could refocus efforts on training Iraqi security forces and Iraqis could focus on political progress. I know it’s convenient for Murtha to point to a lack of political progress and declare defeat, just as at the very beginning of the surge he was making the same proclamations on the lack of military progress, but the point is that now is the time for political progress to begin.
And it will begin, as long as Murtha and the rest of his defeatist colleagues can be held off long enough for it to happen.