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High praise, coming from you.

For the last few hours I've been trying to find Murth's speech on the House floor where he called for the troops to be removed.

I've found it, itself, but all the links back to Thomas seem to have been disappeared.

Here's the title, and how he begins:

REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM SOMALIA (House of Representatives - November 09, 1993)

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, let me just make a couple of points.

I expressed my opposition to our deployment to Somalia when it began. When I went to the White House, I expressed my concern to President Bush....

And here is the Thomas link that no longer works:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r103:7:./temp/~r103cpDgH0:e123712:

It's not a big deal, but it would be great to have a direct citation for this speech, if you or anybody else can find the original posting or archive.

But I do love it that Murtha cited BOTH instances that Al Qaeda were inspired by.

What a clown!

http://tinyurl.com/e9zrt

http://tinyurl.com/j5ymz

http://tinyurl.com/gpkv5

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"Our welcome has been worn out," Rep Murtha told NBC's "Today" show in Sept. 1993, a month after 4 U.S. Military Police had been killed in Somalia by a remote-detonated land mine.

The Pennsylvania Democrat announced that President Clinton had been "listening to our suggestions. And I think you'll see him move those troops out very quickly."

Two weeks later, after 18 U.S. Rangers were killed in the battle of Mogadishu, Murtha visited U.S. forces in Somalia.
Upon his return he proclaimed to the world that the Mogadishu defeat had a devastating impact on the Rangers' morale.

"They're subdued compared to normal morale of elite forces," Murtha said. "Obviously, it was a very difficult battle. A lot of Somalis were killed, but it was a brutal battle."

Murtha said the U.S. had to no choice but to pull out now, explaining, "There's no military solution. Some of them will tell you [that] to get [warlord Mohamed Farrah] Aidid is the solution. I don't agree with that."

http://tinyurl.com/n9c4h

Below is an FR post of the remarks of Murtha. The Thomas Link doesn't work now on this post.

link

"http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r103:7:./temp/~r103cpDgH0:e123712:

REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM SOMALIA (House of Representatives - November 09, 1993)

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, let me just make a couple of points.

I expressed my opposition to our deployment to Somalia when it began. When I went to the White House, I expressed my concern to President Bush.

I said, `This is a mistake, we shouldn't deploy under these circumstances, and it's going to deplete the resources of the Armed Forces,' and I asked him how we were going to get out and when we were going to get out.

Mr. Speaker, he said, `I'll have these troops out by Inauguration Day.'

Well, Mr. Speaker, the United Nations was slow in its deployment to basically take over the U.S. role. The United Nations came to depend heavily on the United States. That was a mistake, no question about it. The administration has learned substantially from this and it has listened to our voices and our advice.

When I went to Somalia the first time, Mr. Speaker, my reservations remained the same. I told the new administration, when it came in, `We should get out of Somalia as quickly as possible,' and in the middle of July I said, `Get our troops out because this could deteriorate into a very tragic situation.'

I made a second trip to Somalia in October. I know the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] also went there. I talked to the Rangers about the October 3 incident. It was a bloody battle. The troops conducted themselves well. They fought valiantly in a congested urban environment.

The President has reassessed the situation. He called everybody in. He listened to what was suggested by the military commanders, and that was, `We need time, first of all, to put forces in place in order to protect our American forces.' They also stated that, because the United Nations has extremely limited logistics capability and poor communications and intelligence, time was needed for the United Nations to develop these functions which had been conducted almost exclusively by U.S. forces.

Now how are we to get out of there? General Bir, the U.N. commander, said, `It would be chaos, a debacle, a disaster if the United States pulled out too quickly. We have to have time,' and these are his words, `in order to replace the logistic support the United States has been providing.' Now how do we do that?

They have a plan. They are going to do that with a civilian operation. We have provided, in our conference report tomorrow, the authority to the Department of Defense to allow them to contract with a civilian authority to provide these administrative logistics type capabilities.

Not only that, but in the conference report we set aside a sense-of-Congress resolution that says: `In the future, before you get involved in these kinds of operations, have consultation with the Congress. Don't wait until there's a tragedy. Consult with the Congress beforehand.'

In working with the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], and the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], and all the other Members, we have tried to work out some kind of a reasonable process where Members of Congress are consulted, with all the experience in the House and in the Senate, before something like this happens.

But I have to say this:

One thing we have learned from Vietnam is that we cannot from the Halls of Congress dictate to the military the strategy for any kind of operation, but we have got to leave it up to the military to make the tactical onsite decisions.

On the ground, every military commander is saying, `I need until March 31.' The recommendation by General Hoar, who spent over 2 hours briefing me about what happened in that tragic event, was `I need until March 31, because I cannot attain our objectives any quicker. Even if he gets a protective buildup done within a month, it will take considerable time beyond that to phase our forces out in a reasonable manner and to establish adequate logistic administrative support to take care of the U.N. mission. Ambassador Oakley also told me he needed until March 31. I realize this is a nonbinding resolution, I realize the Congress wants to speak on this situation, and I think the administration has heard the objections. The administration came to a conclusion--March 31 is the earliest date we can complete our withdrawal.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Members to vote against the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and give the President an opportunity to get the troops out in an orderly manner as quickly as prudently possible."