BY TYLER WHITLEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 3, 2007
U.S. forces must stay in Iraq until America wins a victory, the House of Representatives minority leader told a Richmond audience yesterday.
Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said a loss in Iraq would lead to chaos and encourage terrorists to come to this country to wreak havoc.
Boehner spoke to the annual campaign fundraising breakfast sponsored by Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, at the Richmond Convention Center. As the chief deputy minority whip, Cantor is one of Boehner's top assistants.
"We have an enemy vowing to kill in the United States, . . . vowing to kill our allies and to impose Islamic law on all the world," Boehner said.
"This is a serious, serious fight we are in," he added. "If we don't take on the terrorists and defeat them now, when are we going to do it?"
Despite the Republican Party's new minority status in Congress, Cantor still attracted the usual crowd of about 1,000 people to the breakfast. Ticket prices began at $100.
House of Delegates candidate G. Manoli Loupassi, a former president of the Richmond City Council, was master of ceremonies.
While defending the war, Boehner acknowledged, "Iraq has certainly been difficult, mistakes have been made, but we have no choice but to win the war in Iraq."
That remark brought applause from the audience.
This was the first breakfast Cantor has hosted since Republicans lost control of Congress. Then-Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert addressed the gathering a year ago.
Boehner, who said at one point that "Democrats didn't win [the November elections], we lost" said the Republican Party will not be able to regain the majority quickly, but that the Democratic majority already has begun to show fissures.
He blamed the election loss on the unpopular war and the scandals that beset some of his colleagues.
"Our friends across the aisle were able to label all of us with that big broad brush," he said. "We Republicans over the last few years stopped acting like Republicans," including not keeping a watchful eye on federal spending.
Boehner predicted that Cantor, 44, a former state delegate from Henrico County who is beginning his fourth term in the House of Representatives, would one day lead the House Republicans.
In a brief interview, Cantor said he hasn't decided yet on how he will vote on a proposal to bring the tobacco industry under the regulation of the Food and Drug Administration. Philip Morris, one of the Richmond area's leading employers and a leading supporter of Cantor, supports the FDA regulation. The political action committee of Altria Group, the parent of Philip Morris USA, sponsored a table at the breakfast yesterday.
"My concern is whether [regulation] will be implemented properly," Cantor said.
Boehner said he opposes the bill, because the FDA has enough to do already.
As for Boehner's comments, I wish someone would define what "win in Iraq" means. I believe we have won - Saddam is gone is he not? Iraq has set up their own government, have they not? What's left for us to do? We won, let's go home!