It is indeed critical that phone calls begin now to Representatives and Senators to express opposition to any additional funding for the Iraq war—

With the November elections approaching, this vote could be the last binding vote on the war in 2008.

If Congress doesn't act now, the president will lock the United States into a long-term military presence in Iraq. The president plans to conclude a new agreement with Iraq before the end of July that would authorize:

• endless occupation, imposing an open-ended commitment for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq;
• expansion of the war, authorizing the U.S. military to attack any neighboring state deemed by the United States to pose a threat to Iraq;
• no rule of law, granting immunity from prosecution to U.S. contractors working in Iraq; and
• detention without charge, allowing U.S. troops to detain Iraqis indefinitely.

You can find out your Representative’ s and Senators’ direct contact information by visiting the website of Contacting Congress: http://www.visi. com/juan/ congress/  

Last Friday morning I [Marcy Winograd] called Congressman Murtha's office to communicate my outrage that Murtha, Pelosi, Hoyer and the rest of the House leadership planned to push through another $170-billion dollar Iraq War supplemental, some 70-billion more than Bush requested -- all with no timelines or benchmarks or any semblance of accountability or restraint. 

Murtha's aide told me the Congressman, Chair of the Defense Subcommittee, hopes to get the supplemental approved by Memorial Day -- but, darn, they're getting a ton of calls from angry people and why don't those people hound the Republicans.  My response?  The last time I checked it was the Democrats who were in the majority in the House and it was the Democrats who controlled whether or not a supplemental went to the floor for a vote.  I told the aide that I needed to understand Murtha's thinking because I was confused as to why a man who has a rep for being critical of the war now wants to give Bush a green light to extend the occupation.  The aide told me Bush would take the money anyway, steal it from another budget -- and with this latest proposal at least congress can get some money, tucked inside the supplemental, for veterans' health care and other worthy causes.

I said -- If Bush and Cheney steal the money because you won't give it to them, then so be it -- You call them the robber barons they are, you make it a campaign issue, you talk about our children's healthcare being forfeited to pay for the war, -- you don't roll over and become complicit, you fight back with courage and conviction.