Dean's latest statement on the war will have to be defended

STEPHANOPOULOS: You heard Mr. (Steve) Hadley right there. How will pulling out American forces -- you want them redeployed over the next six months. How will that make America more secure?

MURTHA: George, I like this guy. I mean, he's starting to come around. He's starting to understand what the American people are saying, and what the Iraqi people are saying.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How is he coming around?

MURTHA: Well, he's coming around because he's talking about redeployment. He's talking about pulling our troops out. And I can see, by what he's saying, that we're going to be out of there by the end of the year or very close to it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But what's the answer to his question?

MURTHA: Well, here's the answer: There's two separate things that you have to look at. Terrorism is in Afghanistan. And the insurgency is in Iraq. The insurgents are all internal. Just three percent -- seven percent are Al Qaida.

So, what I'm saying is you have to separate terrorism, which is from Afghanistan, which is completely legitimate to go into versus the insurgency. The insurgency will be less. They want us out of there.

The Iraqi people want us out -- 80 percent; 45 percent say it's justified to kill Americans. Their communique says it's justifiable to kill Americans -- the official communique.

And then 77 percent of the people in the periphery -- Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan say, we need to be out of there. There's more chance of a democracy, less chance of terrorism.

The insurgency will be reduced if we get out of there.