Yesterday in an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress, Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Jim McGovern (D-MA) said President Obama’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan is “insufficient.” McGovern predicted that “the anti war movement in Congress is going to continue to grow and intensify,” while Jones said he is optimistic that more Republicans will begin speaking out.

Seeming to allude to the neocons — whom he referred to as “this kind of elite group who always weigh in on foreign policy” — McGovern also criticized those pushing for continuing the war in Afghanistan. He included in that group “the editorial page of one of the newspapers in this great city where they view any kind of change in policy as somehow a retreat or a failure” — an apparent reference to what liberal blogger Duncan Black regularly calls “Fred Hiatt’s crayon scribble page“:

MCGOVERN: They are obsessed with the U.S. saving face. Well, you know, changing things to make things better is not a weakness. You know if you pursue a policy that’s not working and getting yourself out of that mess, that’s not a weakness, that’s intelligence, that’s smart. I wish some of these people would be less worried about saving face and more worried about saving American lives.

Watch it:

Jones and McGovern got some support from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday, who also criticized Obama’s plan for not going far enough. “Many of us would like to see this go faster than the path that was laid out. However, it may [go faster],” said Pelosi. The Hill reported that she “volunteered” that statement “during a Capitol Hill press conference dominated by budget issues.”

Late last month, Congress defeated an amendment sponsored by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) that would have mandated an accelerated U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The measure failed 204-215, but the result is significant because it garnered 26 Republican votes.

At an event today sponsored by the Center for American Progress, McGovern and Jones said President Obama’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan he announced last night does not go far enough. “We need to get all the troops out of Afghanistan sooner than 2014, because 2014 will become 2015 and so on, and it will be a neverending exit date,” Jones said.

In an interview with ThinkProgress after the event, both lawmakers stressed that they’re not giving up their efforts in Congress. “I think the anti-war movement in Congress is going to continue to grow and intensify,” McGovern said. Jones said he’s optimistic that he can peel away more Republicans to their side:

JONES: Republicans are beginning to understand that trying to police the world, you can’t pay for it. That’s what Republicans are beginning to understand. [...] What I’m trying to do on our side is to get more Republicans to join on the bill. Because that in itself sends a signal. But I believe, as Jim said, we’re not going away. [...]

TP: Are there a lot more Republicans talking to you privately?

JONES: Oh yeah.

Watch the interview clip:

Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA), who is also part of a coalition of leaders in Congress pushing for an end to war in Afghanistan, has called on the president to reduce forces there to 20,000 by the end of 2012 and to around 10,000 by the end of 2013. “Anything short of that,” he said in a separate interview with ThinkProgress last week, “he’s [Obama] going to have a revolt in Congress. Congress has had it.”