This judge is a 2003 Bush appointee. From Oct. 2005: U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer has accepted the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) contention that every single word of a 50-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq must be kept secret, according to a September 30 Memorandum Opinion in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive against the CIA. It’s a terrible thing. Since the politicizing of our court systems by Bush, you just have to wonder at every case what the motive is. I’m not a big Murtha fan……but I can’t disagree with his statement that the Haditha killings were cold blooded murder. These guys gunned down 5 innocent men and then went house to house and killed elderly, women and children. Is that cold blooded murder? I think it is. War sucks.

A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a defamation case against Rep. John P. Murtha and ordered the Pennsylvania Democrat to give a sworn deposition in the case.

A Marine Corps sergeant is suing the 18-term congressman for alleging ”cold-blooded murder and war crimes” by unnamed soldiers in connection with the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha.

The deaths became prominent in May 2006 when Murtha, who opposes the Iraq war, said at a Capitol Hill news conference that a Pentagon war crimes investigation will show Marines killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians in the town in 2005.

Murtha’s office declined to comment on the ruling. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran and retired Marine Reserves colonel, has said his intention was to draw attention to the pressure put on troops in Iraq and efforts to cover-up the incident.

The Justice Department wanted the case dismissed because Murtha was acting in his official role as a lawmaker. Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Henault said the comments were made as part of the debate over the war in Iraq.

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