SubscribeMurtha Was Briefed After “Cold Blooded” Claim
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
A two-front war for Murtha
He’s under attack by those livid about his Iraq criticism.
By Tom Infield
Inquirer Staff Writer08/03/2006
In May, U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha roused the anger of some in the military and on the political right by saying that American Marines had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood" in Iraq.
Now, the Western Pennsylvania Democrat - who hopes to become majority leader if his party captures the House in the fall election - finds himself under fire on two fronts as a result of his comment, which dealt with a still-unresolved incident in Haditha, Iraq, late last year in which 24 people died.
Politically, Murtha is under attack from a few of the veterans who during the 2004 presidential campaign led an assault on U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s record in the Vietnam War. Their campaign - right down to images on their Web site, www.bootmurtha.com - deliberately echoes what Democrats have called the "swiftboating" of Kerry.
Legally, Murtha faces a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court in Washington in which a 26-year-old Marine sergeant contends that Murtha defamed him and his unit.
Amid all of this, the facts of the Haditha incident remain clouded.
No one has been charged with a crime, although the Associated Press quoted unnamed Pentagon sources yesterday saying that evidence supports the contention that Marines shot the 24 people deliberately and that they were not killed amid a house-to-house gun battle, as was claimed in the libel suit filed by Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, a member of the 3d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.
Murtha, 74, a 26-year House member and the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, has become a lightning rod for Iraq controversy because of his persistent calls for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq.
"The war cannot be won militarily," he said yesterday.
He is a tough-talking Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War with two Purple Hearts for wounds received in combat. But some bloggers on the right have raised vague questions about the legitimacy of his combat medals, just as some questioned Kerry’s three Purple Hearts from Vietnam when he was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004.
Murtha, in a phone interview yesterday, said such questions were "ridiculous" and nothing but efforts "stop me from talking" about what he sees as failed U.S. policy in Iraq.
In a prepared statement on the lawsuit, he commented: "I don’t blame the staff sergeant for lashing out. When I spoke up about Haditha, my intention was to draw attention to the horrendous pressure put on our troops in Iraq and to the cover-up of the incident."
Among other things, the lawsuit seeks to smoke out the military officials who gave him the information on which he based his charge that Marines had killed innocent civilians.
Asked about this in the interview, Murtha said the information came from Gen. Michael Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps, in a one-on-one conversation the day before Hagee made a trip to Iraq. Hagee did not use the term "in cold blood," he added.
Col. Dave Lapan, a Marine spokesman, disputed Murtha’s account.
He said the commandant did brief Murtha about the Haditha incident. But he said that was on May 24, a week after Murtha made his public comment. The next day, May 25, Hagee left for Iraq, he said.
In Johnstown today, a group calling itself Vets for the Truth planned to hold a news conference in front of Murtha’s congressional office to announce plans for an anti-Murtha rally Oct. 1. Murtha’s Republican opponent, Diana Irey, who faces an uphill battle, said in an interview that she, too, was upset by Murtha’s comment about the Haditha Marines.
The veterans’ group is led by retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey of Chocowinity, N.C., a former Navy SEAL who once commanded the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif.
Bailey was president of the anti-Kerry Vietnam Vets for the Truth, which sponsored a 2004 rally on Capitol Hill. The group called attention to what it said were Kerry’s lies in the 1970s about atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam.
Its Web site carries an image of Murtha on a made-up book cover bearing the same title and same look as a book written about Kerry in 2004, Unfit for Command.
Unfit for Command was co-written by John E. O’Neill, a Texas lawyer who co-led a group of anti-Kerry swift boat veterans, some of whom Kerry had served with as a Navy officer in Vietnam.
Bailey said his group, which so far consists only of "five or six" veteran members, is not related to the former Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But he said he had asked O’Neill to speak at the fall anti-Murtha rally.
O’Neill, reached at his law office in Houston on Tuesday, said he had no comment on the request or the group’s activities.
Bailey said his group raised $150,000 in 2004, while the larger swift-boat group raised millions. The two were unrelated but worked in harmony, he said.
He said he was furious when Murtha "slandered" the Haditha Marines without knowing all that had happened.
"No intelligent patriot would make a statement like that until the facts were in," he said.
This time around, Vets for the Truth had just $15,000 in the bank as of Tuesday, Bailey said.
But he said his group has become part of another group, Iowa Presidential Watch, which is registered with the Federal Election Commission and IRS to accept contributions. That group is led by Roger Hughes, the Republican Party leader of Hamilton County, Iowa.
Hughes, in an interview, said, "I think there is a potential for many people in the country to rally to this cause."
In comments attributed to him on the Web site www.iowapresidentialwatch.com, Hughes says Murtha’s ambition to be House majority leader gives him "the potential to hurt America’s security more than in the past."
"He has taken upon himself the role of being in the front line of the assault on America’s security," the Web site quotes Hughes as saying. "His ‘fifth-column’ efforts in former years have not resulted in any significant weakening of America’s strength, but now it is different!"
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines fifth column as "a group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within defense lines or national borders."
Said Murtha: "To call me a fifth-columnist, I cannot believe that."
Murtha’s right. "Fifth-columnist" is too kind.
Murtha is an out and out traitor.
And a grifter — and of course, a liar.
Related Articles:
- Haditha Marine Sues Murtha For Defamation
- Murtha: Our Enemies Want Us To Stay In Iraq
- John Murtha: US Biggest Threat To World Peace
- Weekly Standard On The Haditha Media Smear
- Shocker: Somalia Retreat Inspired Bin Laden
- Senate Rejects Kerry's "Cut & Run" Bill: 93 - 6
- Haditha Marine Lawyer Will Make Murtha Testify
- John Murtha: "Marines Killed In Cold Blood"
- More On Rep John Murtha's "Abscam" Past
- John Murtha's Two Purple Hearts Questioned
- Murtha Gets Code Pink's "Badge Of Courage"
- More Information On Murtha (D-Al Qaeda)
- Murtha: Don't Indict Me - A Whistleblower!
- John Murtha (D) - From Abscam To Amscray
23 Responses to “Murtha Was Briefed After “Cold Blooded” Claim”
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August 3rd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
I saw the lawyer for the SGT on Fox last night - O’Reilly I think - and O’Reilly ended with ‘not so Semper Fi for Murtha’ - great statement.
I always thought that America was innocent until proven guilty and with a daughter who is a Marine - their pride is outstanding. I am not sure what Murtha’s issue is, turncoat, traitor, bds, money from activists (he is associated with CodePink), personal guilt/pain, whatever - you still don’t turn on active duty military in a combat theater before they are charged, tried and convicted.
It is a shame that not one of the congress critters had the backbone to call Murtha out the first he uttered those words. . .so I guess the lawsuit has to do.
The Marines are already calling him a liar - should be interesting to find out how this turns out - my money is on the Marines being innocent.
Remember 6 alledged ‘incidents’ - 3 are already booted without a SINGLE CONVICTION, thats 50% for those liberals out there - one more and the majority are lies, garbage, and just another attempt to discredit the war/President Bush - which once again failed. . .Sorry for that rant - couldn’t help it.
War is hell and sometimes bad things happen - but this new attempt to convict our troops on the basis of accusations from people who kill their own worries me a lot. Of course they wouldn’t be getting anywhere at all if the msm, ‘Mother’ Sheehan crowd and politicos like Murtha weren’t such willing accomplices.
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Murhta’s veteran status should not give him a free pass. Benedict Arnold served bravely and well before he switched sides, but he is still known as a traitor. He and some other Dem pols think they’ll ride an anti-war wave to power, but I think they are mistaken, or at least I certainly hope so.
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:47 pm
The article points out, and you have highlighted SG, that Murtha shot his mouth off using phrases like “in cold blood” a week BEFORE his briefing by the General. And even he admits the General never used the phrase.
As for his own bona fides:
“He is a tough-talking Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War with two Purple Hearts for wounds received in combat. But some bloggers on the right have raised vague questions about the legitimacy of his combat medals…
Murtha…said such questions were “ridiculous” ”
There’s a real easy way to show how ridiculous those questions are, Congressman. Release your records.
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:13 pm
And do not forget this “hero” claims to have slept through a fire fight because he was SOOoooooo tired.
NO ONE sleeps through a fire fight…
LMAO
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Funny how the left always seem to do something outragous when they know their cajones are about to be put in the vice. Murtha was facing a congressional investigation before he started with his anti-war rhetoric. What has happened to that investigation? Did the congress just decide to ignore his money-pandering because then he would say it was just revenge on the part of the right?
What the hell is going on with the Republican party? They are caving like the Big Dig in KK territory.
August 3rd, 2006 at 7:08 pm
I should have known that someone in the Dem party was in trouble. Here I thought it was just simple poll driven politics. Seems to me I remember the ethics committee was just about to act on a Dem when they set rabid Ronnie Earl after Delay (who headed the committee). I should have known that dirty tricks were part of the deal.
August 3rd, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Murtha was never on the front line. He did administative work in the rear. He must have gotten a paper cut to get his purple heart.
Plus isn’t his brother (or some relative) making big bucks off of military contracts? He needs to join Cunningham in jail…both were cut from the same cloth but only the Republican went to jail.
Murtha: ABSCAM, military contracts to his brother, fake purple hearts, saying Marines killed in cold blood without know the facts.
He needs to go!
August 3rd, 2006 at 7:17 pm
MotherF is as dirty as they get.
August 3rd, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Murtha (Dhimmi Traitor-PA) is as crooked as they come. The slovenly worm should have been tried in the Abscam debacle but instead copped a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Charges against him were dropped in exchange for his testimony against Democratic Rep’s Murphy and Thompson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam
Congressman Jack Murtha (D-PA) was indicted but not prosecuted because he gave evidence against Murphy and Thompson. The FBI videotaped Murtha as saying, “I’m not interested. I’m sorry… at this point.”[1]
CNSNews.com, a Division of the conservative Media Research Center, reports the full FBI video reveals Murtha later stating on the tape, “You know, we do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested, maybe I won’t.”[2] Murtha has faced heavy criticism from conservative commentators since announcing his opposition to the war in Iraq in 2005.
The Brattleboro Reformer also reported Murtha asked the fake sheik to consider investing some money in his hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.[3]
In November 1980, the Justice Department announced that Murtha would not face prosecution for his part in the scandal. In July 1981, the House ethics committee also chose not to file charges against Congressman Murtha, following a mostly party line vote, after which E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr., the panel’s special counsel, abruptly resigned in protest. House ethics rules require members to immediately report any bribe offers to the FBI.
In 2002, one of the panel members, Rep. Don Bailey (who lost to Murtha in a primary challenge in 1982) released a public letter stating “I was, to be honest, critical about how you misled me about Abscam where you convinced me you had voluntarily told federal agents about the offer of money to you,” Bailey wrote Murtha. “I learned later, after I had successfully defeated the ethics charges against you, that you had merely manipulated the system to cooperate with federal agents to avoid prosecution,” Bailey added.[4]
“The idea that somebody is going to trot out $50,000 in cash in front of you and you don’t know that is wrong is pretty damn stupid to me,” Bailey said. “What bankers or investors run around with $50,000 in cash?”[5]
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:00 pm
He admits to sleeping through a firefight??? How many Marines died because he wasn’t awake to cover their ass?? Where I come from, sleeping on the job will get your butt fired (even in civilian jobs).
Something tells me that the Marine Corp League will not be delivering a “TOY” for this “TOT” next Christmas!!
Too bad, you MurthaFaker!!
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:10 pm
It is quite possible that he “slept” through a firefight. When the fight was going on, he fell asleep next to the quartermaster’s radio which was about sixty miles from the firefight.
Or, he could have “slept” through the firefight the same way he is sleeping through his current term. If he closes his eyes and says, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home”, even this disgusting fat bastard can sleep through reality, regardless of how many are dying around him.
He lives in Murthaland…..and that tubby prick deserves to be fired, censured, and removed from any office of responsibility. Anyone who accuses Marines before the fact is a blowhard mash brained asswipe, but Murtha has set the bar for a new level of scum.
He is why I really dislike politicians. That mouth of his is like a five year old with a pistol. Shooting it off, and not caring who it hits, knowing he is protected by the fact that he is a Congressman. Voting him out is too easy, he should be forced to stand on the grinder at Camp Pendleton wearing a purple squinned jock strap and apologize to every recruit that passes by him. Then, deny him a towel to wipe off the spit.
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Spit hell, give every one a cane and tell them to go at it.
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:43 pm
I agree 1st, but canes are not as effective as lengths of re-bar. But, in keeping with our policy of not exhibiting extent violent behavior, I will refrain from relating what Murtha should actually recieve. But all of you, in your own minds, are creating a scenario that would be painful to say the least. And he deserves no less. Shame and disgust are his credentials….and he even makes other politicians look good. They arent, but Murtha carries the stain of betrayal to the Corps….and that is and always will be unforgivable.
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:49 pm
It will be enough for me when he is defeated this fall.
Then we can do what we want to with him.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:29 pm
1st did you just spell beheaded wrong?
My mistake defeated must be right.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Lets go with defeated until he is out of office. Then?
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Agreed.
Then can we send him to the middle east?, Just might get it both ways.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Works for me.
Queston.
If snag were to be beheaded, would she notice?
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:13 pm
1st. That is a very good question.
We must use some extrapolations.
If we were to look at a chicken with its head cut off it runs around like an idiot.
But as we all know a chicken isn’t all that bright with its head on, But it can make a lot of noise, But still it runs around like an idiot feeding its stupid clucking face.
That would seem to point out that the only purpose for a chickens head is to make sure it can feed and make a lot of noise.
But does it know its head has been severed?
Did it know it had a head?
In few minutes the stupid animal falls over dead with out its head.
This can be attributed to blood loss.
But I do remember a headless chicken that lived for several years.
A farmer used a funnel to feed it thru its headless neck.
But a snag with its head cut off, Has never been tested to my knowledge.
I do beleive however that this idiot life form would shut the cluck up.
August 4th, 2006 at 1:38 am
“And do not forget this “hero” claims to have slept through a fire fight because he was SOOoooooo tired.”
That is true. Thus the “Sleepy” in my moniker for him, Sleepy the Dwarf.
I do not call him a “dwarf” merely because of some physical resemblance he may bear to the little people. I call him such because he is a moral midget, a petty little soul with big ambitions, a myopic self-promoting cipher whom connections and good timing have thrust into a position of influence and notoriety, though not as yet real power.
Should he gain that power, the nothing that he is will be inflicted on us all. He will go from being the lint in our Congressional navel to the water in our national gas tank, the carbon monoxide in our collective lungs, the rotten timber in the walls that protect our country.
“To call me a fifth-columnist, I cannot believe that.” Oh, for the coming day that you utter that phrase ad nauseum, knocking your worn-out head against the bars of a cell. Old as you are, and squeamish as your Republican counterparts have become, it is likely time and timidity will cheat us of that demonstration of sweet justice; but you can rest your sleepy head with the thought that a growing number of us wish exactly that: For your final years to be spent in shame and solitude, and your legacy to be nothing save disgrace.
August 5th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
“The war cannot be won militarily,” he (Murtha) said yesterday.
Of course it can be won. The US has the best equipped, best trained, most motivated (and volunteer) military ever to grace the earth. There isn’t a military conflict that we couldn’t win if we were allowed to actually fight without tied hands.
Now the propaganda war, that’s another story. We also have some of the best equipped and most motivated liars in world history in our midst. With traitors like Murtha on hand to talk shit about the military and a pinko leftwing media all too willing to print every lying word he says, that war is certainly ripe to lose. This man and his like have some major repenting to do.
Murtha absolutely makes me sick. If looks or thoughts could kill, he would be maggot food.
August 5th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
From Robert Novak:
MURTHA’S MISTAKE
Rep. John Murtha, responding Wednesday to a defamation lawsuit filed by a Marine accused of killing Iraqi civilians in 2005, mistakenly said Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich had been “charged in the incident at Haditha.” In fact, no charges have been filed against anybody.
Murtha quickly issued a new press release Wednesday deleting “charged” and describing Wuterich as leader of “the squad accused of killing two dozen civilians.” The lawsuit accused Murtha of spreading “false and malicious lies” about the sergeant in his May 19 statement which said Marines “killed a number of civilians without anybody firing at them.”
Although Murtha has carried his western Pennsylvania district by landslide margins and was unopposed in 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won it with only 51 percent. Diana Irey, a Republican county commissioner, is waging a vigorous campaign, and last week accused Murtha of “regular and willful misstatements of key facts.”
http://townhall.com/columnists.....038;page=2
August 14th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Note this was in 1990….from the New York Times archives (which I can’t access)
If they wanted to throw the bum out in 1990, they can still do it in 2006!
==============
Representative John P. Murtha is one of the most influential power brokers in Congress, but in a Democratic primary two weeks ago the voters of his Pennsylvania district nearly turned him out of office.
May 28, 1990 U.S. News