There is possibility of impeaching Bush: Murtha

There is possibility of impeaching Bush: lawmaker

Washington, April 30 (PTI): A top US lawmaker and a leading war critic has held out the possibility of the Democrats impeaching the President George W Bush stressing that this is perhaps one way of influencing a President.

The Democrat in the House of Representatives John Murtha, a top conservative turned critic of the Iraq war, has said that if the President vetoes the current spending legislation as he has promised to the Democrats will send him one more and this would perhaps take the route of Democrats insisting on a two month funding first before looking at a year's timetable.

"... in the first place, we gave the president everything he asked for and then some. We gave him USD four billion more...If he vetoes this bill, he's cut off the money. But obviously, we're going to pass another bill. It's going to have some stringent requirements. I'd like to see two months.

I' d like to look at this again in two months... Fund it for two months instead of a year. And then look at it again," Murtha said on CBS' Face The Nation programme.

Murtha stressed that the White House has not been in a compromising mood and that Congress has done everything it can to accomodate the wishes of the White House.

"But the White House has said no to everything. They say we're willing to compromise, and then we don't get any compromise. We've compromised on waivers for the requirements for the troops, which is their own requirements, and also goals instead of requirements for the benchmarks. So, we've already compromised," the law maker said.

"And we need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken. There's three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is, and fourth is the purse," Murtha remarked.

Pressed on the issue the Congressman merely replied "... what I'm saying, there's four ways to influence a president... And one of them's impeachment".

"...I'm just saying that's one way to influence a president. The other way is through the purse. And the purse is controlled by the Congress, who's elected the by the public. In the last election, the public said, we want the Democrats in control" he said.

For its part the administration sent out Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the Sunday Talk Shows Circuit. She put out the standard opposition to the Congressional legislation.

"The president has said he will not accept anything that constitutes a timetable for American withdrawal," Rice said on ABC's This Week.

"To begin now to tie our own hands and to say we must do this if they don't do that doesn't allow us the flexibility and creativity that we need to move this forward," she said.