Sessions urged troop drawdown in Iraq "as quickly as possible"

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/13557547.htm

Sessions urged troop drawdown in Iraq "as quickly as possible"

Associated Press

MOBILE, Ala. - U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, in a September 2003 letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, called for a drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq "as quickly as possible," the Mobile Register reported Thursday.

The Alabama Republican told the newspaper it would be "ridiculous" to compare his call for a swift troop reduction more than two years ago to the one made recently by U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania whose stand set off a storm of GOP criticism.

Sessions said his visit in 2003, after a fact-finding trip, came before the violence of insurgents escalated and that his view has changed over time.

...

Sessions' three-page letter, which the Mobile Register obtained under a Freedom Of Information Act request, was dated Sept. 5, 2003, shortly after Sessions returned from a fact-finding trip, including two days in Iraq.