Clinton refuses to commit to full Iraq pullout by end of first potential term

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On Sunday talk show, Clinton refuses to commit to full Iraq pullout by end of first term

Video at source

John Byrne
Published: Monday September 24, 2007


The leading Democratic contender for the presidency was asked whether she'd pull out all troops from Iraq in her first term.

She declined.

"You know, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don't know what I'm going to inherit," Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, according to the New York Times. "I don't know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become? What will be happening in the Middle East?

"How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what's going on in the greater region?" she continued. "Will we have pushed Al Qaeda in Iraq out of their stronghold with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheikhs or will they have regrouped and retrenched? I don't know and I think it's not appropriate to be speculating."

Clinton is in a bind over her stance on the war -- on the one hand, she has to appease those who support liberal activist groups like MoveOn.org -- and on the other, she must court a broader electorate.

On CNN's Late Edition, she was asked about MoveOn's controversial "General Betray Us" ad, which accused Gen. David Petraeus of betraying America for "cooking the books" on the Iraq war for the White House on the day he testified before Congress.

Clinton took a middle ground.

"Let's be clear what's going on here," she said. "This is an effort to focus on an ad that I condemned and don't condone in order to avoid having to deal with the tough questions about our policy in Iraq. The policy has failed."

And on NBC's Meet The Press: "Let's be clear about this: This is not a debate about an ad. This is a debate about the direction we should pursue in Iraq.

"The real problem is a policy in Iraq that has failed, and unfortunately, it is clear that the president does not intend to change direction before he leaves office."

It's bad now... Let that biotch into office and it will get worse cubed in a hurry.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said Sunday she won't vote for any more money to support the four-year-old war in Iraq without a plan to start bringing U.S. troops home.

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/POLITICS...clinton.gi.jpg Presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton greets people before speaking in Washington on September 17.



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"I've reached the conclusion that the best way to support our troops is begin bringing them home," the New York senator and former first lady told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

"I don't believe we should continue to vote for funding that has an open-ended commitment, that has no pressure on the Iraqi government to make the tough political decisions they have to make, or which really gives any urgency to the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts."

Clinton's declaration comes as the Senate debates the Defense Department's 2008 spending authorization bill. It follows her vote against a $120 billion war-spending bill in May, when Congress dropped a call for the withdrawal of American combat troops by March 2008 after President Bush vetoed a bill containing that provision.

"The president has no intention of changing his policy in Iraq," she said. "He's now talking about leaving it to his successor."

Meanwhile, the Senate's Republican minority routinely filibusters Democratic proposals to wind down the war, which is costing the Treasury about $10 billion a month and has claimed the lives of nearly 3,800 American troops.

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May's spending bill made continued U.S. support contingent on a set of benchmarks for Iraq's government.

But the Iraqis met only 11 of the 18 benchmarks, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

"Even those who are implementing this policy of the president's cannot tell us it will make America more safe, nor that it will lead to the kind of political decision-making that we have to expect from the Iraqis themselves," Clinton said.

Nearly two-thirds of the American public now opposes the war, according to a CNN-Opinion Research poll conducted in early September.

Clinton said, if elected president, she would end the conflict "as quickly and responsibly as I can," but said some U.S. forces would likely remain as trainers, to protect Americans and to battle Islamic militants loyal to al Qaeda.

The two-term senator, who leads her Democratic presidential rivals by a double-digit margin in national polls, made the rounds of all five Washington talk shows Sunday.

Last week, Clinton supported two amendments that would have forced the Pentagon to begin a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

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But she said Sunday that even if Democrats muster enough Republican support to break a filibuster -- something they have been unable to do -- Democrats would still be unlikely to get the two-thirds vote needed to override a presidential veto.

"The answer for this is, let's elect more Democrats in 2008," she said. "That will help solve the problem."