It is time for Congress to stop procrastinating about Iraq. Urge our congressional representatives to sign on to a bipartisan resolution, the Homeward Bound Act, H J Res 55 and S Res 171, calling for President Bush to come up with a plan by the end of this year to withdraw the troops from Iraq, and for the withdrawal to start no later than October 2006. The binding resolution is being sponsored by Rep. Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R-NC), Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii).

We do not want this war and occupation to drag on endlessly like the Vietnam War, which lasted more than 10 years. American public opinion turned against the Vietnam War in 1968 and yet the war went on for seven more years during which most of the fatalities and casualties occurred. There were always new promises of “light at the end of the tunnel.” Elections were held in 1967 in South Vietnam with 80-percent participation, yet the regime was nonetheless defeated. The infamous “Domino Theory” did not come true.

The Vietnam War was only ended after Congress voted to cut off funds. Our troops should not have to pay for the maliciousness and bungling of high government officials.

President Jimmy Carter provoked the December 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan by giving military assistance to the mujahideen in a directive signed July 3, 1979. This is documented in former CIA director Robert Gates’s memoirs. This triggered the whole sad chain of events in Afghanistan. And yet gullible liberals are still suckered by Carter’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize!

On the eve of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie had a fateful conversation with Hussein. She gave a clear diplomatic signal for Iraq to invade, saying: “We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.”

Bald-faced lies have been used in the hate campaign against Hussein. Gassing the Kurds was done with cyanide-based gas that Iran, but not Iraq, had at the time. This was explained in New York Times editorial by Stephen C. Pelletiere, the senior CIA political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.

Jim Senyszyn, Peoria