Murtha: "Hillary, I Don't Know Where She Is'' On Iraq..."McCain Is Too Old..."

WASHINGTON - Congressman Jack Murtha is just not that interested in what his critics have to say: When it comes to Iraq, "Everything I've said from a year and a half ago has turned out to be true!" he said, jabbing the air with both index fingers for emphasis during a wide-ranging interview in his office.

The decorated Vietnam vet, who has been speaking out against this war since 2005, says he still sees nothing wrong -- either substantively or strategically -- with his plan to tie funding for a troop escalation to a requirement that troops actually be ready to fight when they arrive in Iraq.

"You have people try to spin it, but you've never heard anybody say they should go back before they're ready." Instead, "They say, 'Al Qaeda will be here!' or that I'm slowly bleeding them."

He laughs -- though not like he thinks it's funny -- at fellow Democrats who claim he botched the play by announcing his proposal "prematurely" through MoveCongress.org: "They blame me - ha! -- because I talked to some organization? It got such wide dissemination and that's what they didn't like."

The real obstacle to redeployment, he suggests, is that so many of his colleagues in both parties agree with him but are too afraid to vote their own conscience -- or even to follow their constituents: "The majority of members understand what I'm doing, but they worry about things I think they should overlook" -- not just political considerations, but incorrect political considerations.

Though news reports generally insist otherwise, he said, there is not such an obvious correlation between the conservatism or liberalism of any given district and the way House members intend to proceed on Iraq: "Some people from very conservative districts are going to vote with us, and Bush almost won my district" in Pennsylvania. "He only lost by 3,000 votes."

As we get closer to '08, however, Murtha expects more and more lawmakers and candidates in both parties to get religion on redeployment: "The public will have their say, and the public was well ahead of me" on the war.

"Our candidates haven't been the strongest," in recent presidential races, he noted, "worrying more about earth tones. But Al Gore has learned it's not the color of your shirt, and Al Gore now I think has the best shot" of taking the White House in '08, ahead of all of the announced candidates.

"And Hillary, I don't know where she is" on Iraq, even now. "I told her, 'You take on this issue and you'll be in the forefront,' but she didn't." And on the Republican side? "McCain is too old in the first place to run for president," he said, "and they all know more troops is not the answer."

The latest iteration of the House bill to wind down the war includes benchmarks for the Iraqi government, a timetable for troop withdrawal, and the readiness standards Murtha wanted all along - but with an out for the president, who could waive those standards if he deemed that action necessary.

Wasn't that tantamount to having no readiness standards at all? No, Murtha insisted -- and ever-so-obliquely raised the president's presumed fear of impeachment as a consideration: "I'm not sure how much access he has to the real world...But if he sends troops in untrained and unequipped, I don't want to say what would happen to him. And all of us are used to being misled. But I'm not sure he'll certify" that troops are ready if they are not.

He did not seem particularly hopeful that the timetable for withdrawal would stay in the bill, but given the current lack of support for a speedy exit, said there was really no alternative to the "glacial" pace of the current Congress.

"Don't get discouraged, kid," he said, and swatted my knee. Though I didn't swat him back, I think he was talking to himself as much as to me.