New Haven Independent

The demonstrators delivered petitions signed by almost 1,300 other constituents with the same request.

They want DeLauro to support an Iraq exit strategy with a timeline that brings most of the troops home by the end of 2006. Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd and U.S. Rep. John Larson have signed on to that concept, and Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha has introduced such a bill.

Protest organizer John Shanley said people had gathered at the end of October to mourn the 2,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, and the unknown thousands of Iraqis. “It’s up to 2,150 [Americans] seven weeks later,” he said. “Twenty guys a week are dying — that’s 20 families who have lost loved ones. And today in the paper I read that the Pentagon is planning on asking for another hundred billion dollars next year. We’re headed up toward half a trillion dollars for this war, while New Orleans rots, while they’re cutting social programs. This war has lost support among the American people. We’re here today to ask Rosa DeLauro to do her job, to represent us, and to sign onto Murtha’s bill.”

Then Shanley read a quote from Dwight Eisenhower: “I think the people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.”

Gwen Mills of New Haven spoke to the crowd, explaining that her brother had just returned from Iraq, where he served at Abu Graib. “We’re very glad to have him home. On a very personal note, the thing I found most difficult about it is that my brother, I think, just learned there, along with a lot of the other men and women that were there, a lack of hope and disillusionment about people in general. And watching the conditions that we had created over there made him feel like people have always fought with each other, and they’re always going to fight with each other. And I think it’s that lack of hope and disillusionment for people of my generation that most infuriates me.”

DeLauro was not in her office, but her aide, Stanley Welch (in photo), came down to accept the petitions. Several people asked if her boss would hold a community meeting in New Haven on the war.

“She already did,” Welch responded.

“Yeah, in March 2003, before the war started,” said peace activist Henry Lowendorf (in photo).

Welch said DeLauro had held such a meeting in Middletown this year. He said he would pass on to DeLauro their request for another New Haven meeting on the subject.

The New Haven event was one of 300 organized at Congressional offices around the country by MoveOn.org. Martha Tyrone, a local MoveOn activist, was on hand for the protest. She said she supported a timetable for withdrawal regardless of what happens on the ground in Iraq, “because it’s not clear that having our troops in Iraq is actually doing any good for the Iraqis. It’s creating more danger for them in a lot of ways, because it gives the insurgents something to protest against. If the troops move out, there’s a decent chance it’ll actually be safer for the Iraqis.” Tyrone also said she wasn’t worried about a withdrawal hurting U.S. security “for the same reason, because our being there motivates people to be against us.”

DeLauro’s spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment, but Lowendorf of the New Haven Peace Council pointed out that when constituents went to her office about a month ago, DeLauro issued a statement saying she has urged President Bush to develop an exit plan. Critics want her to take a leadership role on the issue.