Bloomberg News, New York
01-28-07
Clinton Says Bush Should Resolve Iraq War Before
Leaving Office
2007-01-28 17:06 (New York)
By Kristin Jensen
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Hillary Clinton, on her
first presidential campaign trip to Iowa, attacked President
George W. Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq and said he's
being
irresponsible by leaving its resolution to his successor.
``It's the height of irresponsibility,'' the New York
Democrat said in Davenport, Iowa. ``This was his
decision to go
to war. He went with an ill-conceived plan and an
incompetently
executed strategy and we should expect him to extricate
our
country from this before he leaves office.''
Clinton's 2002 vote for a resolution giving Bush
authority
to invade Iraq is a major issue in Iowa, where the war is
deeply
unpopular and where both parties will hold the first contest
for
their presidential nominations a year from now.
While the senator repeatedly criticized Bush's
management
of the war, she stopped short of renouncing her vote.
Clinton
said she acted on her ``best judgment'' at the time based
on the
information available.
``He took the authority that I and others gave him
and he
misused it,'' Clinton said. ``If we had known then what
we know
now, there never would have been a vote and I never
would have
voted to give this president that authority.''
A White House spokesman turned Clinton's words back
on her,
criticizing her position that sending more troops to Iraq
requires congressional approval. Bush, who has
acknowledged that
U.S. troops likely will still be in Iraq after he leaves office
in 2009, is deploying 21,500 more soldiers and Marines to
quell
violence in the country.
``It is disappointing that Senator Clinton is responding
to
the president's new strategy for Iraq with a partisan
attack,''
said Bush spokesman Rob Saliterman. ``The height of
irresponsibility would be to cap our troop numbers at an
arbitrary figure.''
Iowa
The war debate has helped Clinton's Democratic rivals
in
Iowa. John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, has
repudiated his 2002 vote and Senator Barack Obama of
Illinois, a
longtime war critic, wasn't yet in Congress.
Clinton, 59, declined to comment on her rivals'
positions
at a news conference in Davenport. Earlier in the day she
told
several hundred Iowans at a town hall meeting that
ending the
war is a complex issue, and it's not enough for candidates
to
simply call for the troops to come home.
``That's easy to say and everybody coming to Iowa is
going
to say it,'' Clinton said. ``It doesn't matter what they did
or
didn't do five years ago; everybody's going to say it.''
Questions
Clinton used her first trip to Iowa since 2003 to
confront
questions ranging from her Iraq vote to whether a woman
can be
elected president. On the latter, she said she tells people
it
will never happen if no one tries and that she's old enough
to
remember when women were told they couldn't do a lot of
things.
``As you can tell, I'm a woman,'' she said in
Davenport.
``But I'm running because I think I'm the best qualified
person
to be president.''
During the last two days, Clinton got a taste of the
unusual questions and comments that she will face as the
first
woman to have a serious chance to take the White House.
In Des Moines, one woman asked her to speak about
how
women's work is ``undervalued.'' Another spoke to her
about
going through menopause. A man told her, ``I think you
look very
nice.'' In Davenport, someone asked her how she would
feel to
become the first female president. ``It would make me
feel very
good -- very, very good,'' Clinton said to cheers and
laughter.
`Evil' Men
A man in Davenport also asked Clinton what
qualifications
she has to confront ``evil'' men such as Osama bin
Laden.
Clinton repeated the question to the crowd, saying ``What
in my
background equips me to deal with evil and bad men?''
Then she
offered an ironic smile, rewarded with peals of laughter.
Reporters later asked Clinton who she was referring
to,
saying some voters thought she was alluding to her
husband,
former President Bill Clinton. She bristled at that idea,
saying
she didn't believe anyone in the room thought that. She
said she
was thinking about ``how our leadership for the last six
years
hasn't really produced results.''
``You guys keep telling me lighten up, be funny,'' she
said. ``I get a little funny and now I'm being
psychoanalyzed.''
Clinton also gave a clue about what role her husband
might
have if she's elected. She praised Bush's pairing of his
father,
former President George H.W. Bush, with Bill Clinton to
lead aid
efforts in response to the 2004 Asian tsunami.
``I will certainly look for ways to employ the skills and
talents of former presidents, most especially my
husband,'' she
said.
Clinton is wading through unfamiliar territory as the
first
former first lady to seek the nation's highest office. In the
end, though, her candidacy boils down to the same issue
that
everyone else in the race faces, political analysts said.
``There's only one thing she has to do,'' said Steffen
Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State
University
in Ames, Iowa. ``She has to make people believe that
she would
be a terrific candidate who can win the general election.''
--Editor: Sobczyk
Story illustration: Click {NXTW BBDP 1442508 <GO>} for
a profile
of Hillary Clinton. Click {TOP GOV <GO>} for top
government
stories. For more on elections, {NI ELECT <GO>}
For a link to Senator Clinton's statement, see:
https://action.hillaryclinton.com/feature/in/
To contact the reporter on this story:
Kristin Jensen in Washington at +1-202-624-1823 or
kjensen@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Mike Forsythe at +1-202-624-1940 or
mforsythe@bloomberg.net