Dear John Murtha: It's Your Turn Again

Like many of us, I have been struggling with the tragic fact that if we leave Iraq we leave a horrible mess behind, but if we stay, the mess will probably get worse due to the problems caused by America's military presence.

Now the Iraq Study Group is saying we should embed more troops, try more diplomacy and then hope for the best.

Speaker Pelosi has indicated that Democrats are willing to work with President Bush to end the war.

Sounds like a long dance to me.

Congressman Murtha, it's time for you to speak truth to power again. So how about this approach to speed things up and get our troops home faster:

1-propose what you might call the "Escrow Exit Strategy" from your key post on House Appropriations - the committee that controls the flow of funds.

2-re-acknowledge and remind Americans that we "own" the problem, because we do. Colin ("you break it, you own it") Powell was right about that one.

3-figure out what it would cost to stay there if we stayed there as long as big kids like the Iraq Study Group want us to - let's say for the sake of argument that it's another two years, $150 billion of taxpayer dollars and American lives.

4-propose we leave as soon as possible and escrow that money for the benefit of the Iraqi people and the reconstruction of that country - because it is the fundamentally right thing to do.

5-In fact, I think you should say that ALL compassionate progressives and conservatives should oppose our country simply pulling out without making some sort of HARD commitment to clean up the mess we've made. Multi-nation talks are nice; redistributions of Iraqi oil revenues are merely theoretical; a hard commitment to rebuilding is the real deal. Do we have the will to stay the course on that?

6-suggest we call in some intelligent mix of our allies, the UN, Middle East neighbors and some internationally wise set of people to work with the US government to set conditions that would govern the release of that money so long as various markers of progress are achieved. Perhaps you want to propose that the Iraq Study Group folks help set these benchmarks.

We just can't leave; but we can't keep throwing money down a rat-hole either. So let's commit to paying for the mess we started, but escrow the funds so that the money is there as an incentive for progress, peace and prosperity.