Former Legislator, Veteran Tell Group It’s Time to Bring Troops Back From Iraq

March 22nd, 2007 Posted in In The News

By Steve Cartwright
Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — The war in Iraq can’t be won and troops should come home now.

That’s according to a veteran of the U.S.-led conflict who spoke Wednesday at a City Center gathering of 60 people opposed to continuing the war, which began four years ago this week.

“We’re making it a lot worse,” said Isaac Weekly, 23, of Lewiston.

When Weekly enlisted in the Army as a high school senior from Montana, he said he was gung-ho. “After 9/11, I was a patriot,” he said.

That was in March 2002.

But after serving in Kuwait in 2003, Weekly said he realized the war was wrong.

“I say we bring our troops home, get them out of there,” he said.

Weekly said it has been an emotional struggle for him as he tries to make a fresh start in Lewiston. His wife, Omaya, said she has studied Islam for two years and it’s a peaceful religion. Iraqi people want U.S. troops to leave, she said.

“We’re making it a lot worse” for the Iraqi people, Weekly said, adding that President Bush has “done nothing but lie.”

The City Center rally was sponsored by Maine Peoples Alliance, which has joined a coalition of peace and veterans groups supporting efforts in Congress to protect the troops and pull them out of Iraq soon.

Former state legislator Michael Brennan, a potential candidate for Congress in Maine’s 1st District, told the group: “We need to bring the troops home and end the war, but we also have a moral obligation to help Iraq rebuild itself.”

The Portland Democrat, a teacher at the University of New England, said Iraqis want jobs, not civil war.

“We need to end the war as quickly as tomorrow,” he said.

Brennan said the United States has lost its moral authority by waging a pre-emptive war.

It has also lost 3,200 troops, and as many as 50,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded.

Someone in the audience pointed out that Iraqis have died, too. Brennan said estimates of Iraqis killed and wounded range from 50,000 to 500,000. The financial cost of the war to the U.S. taxpayer, he said, is more than $450 billion.

Two million Iraqis have lost their homes, Brennan said.

In four years of war, $1.2 billion of Maine taxpayers’ money has been spent on it, Brennan claimed — an amount he said could provide education for all Maine students or universal health care to Maine citizens.

Sara Stalman of Harborside, a Maine Peoples Alliance volunteer, urged citizens to call their legislators in support of an amendment proposed by U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., that would fully fund withdrawal of all troops from Iraq by the end of this year.

The amendment could be voted on as early as today and would modify a supplemental budget bill pending in Congress.

“My hope is that next year we won’t have to sit here and say how can we end the war because it will be over,” she said.

A Vietnam War veteran said it took the near-impeachment and resignation of President Nixon to end that war — and it may take that to end this one.

Among those in the audience was John Graham, deputy chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, D-2nd District.

Graham said he was just there to listen, but reminded attendees that Michaud has publicly stated his opposition to the war in Iraq from its beginning.

Steve Cartwright — 623-3811, Ext. 435

scartwright@centralmaine.com