Clinton On Iraq

Christopher Hitchens has a fine piece on the trajectory of our war with Iraq.

...it was on the initiative of President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, both of whom delivered extremely tough speeches warning of another round of confrontation with Saddam Hussein, that the Senate passed the Iraq Liberation Act that year, making it U.S. policy to remove the Baathists from power. It was the Clinton administration that bombed Sudan, claiming that a factory outside Khartoum represented a chemical-weapons link between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden. And, as Sen. Clinton reminded us in the very same speech, it was "President Clinton, with the British and others, [who] ordered an intensive four-day air assault, Operation Desert Fox, on known and suspected weapons of mass destruction sites and other military targets" in Iraq. On its own, this is enough to make childish nonsense of her insinuation that an "obsession" with Saddam took root only after the Bush-Cheney victory in 2000.
This just in: Clinton calls for pullout starting in 90 days.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day deadline to start pulling American troops from Iraq.

Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, has been criticized by some Democrats for supporting authorization of the war in 2002 and for not renouncing her vote as she seeks the U.S. presidency in next year's election.

H/T Instapundit and Don Surber and a commenter at Ann Althouse.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

posted by Simon on 02.18.07 at 04:53 PM





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Comments

the obsession with Sen Clinton is amusing...you folks simplyh can not believe that she and many others, inclujding a large majroityh of Americans want us out of that cesspool of civil war....why not look to the party of your choice to pick at this and that...you are so friggin negative that it gets tiresome.

david still   ·  February 18, 2007 05:24 PM

Let's see, now when we pull out,the Bushes and the Cheneys will be gone and the hands on the armed services will be those of Mrs. Pelosi, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Reid. Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Durbin and Mr. Leahy and Mr. Levin and the newly elected president, whoever that might be. Do you see a stronger, safer and securer nation? I don't. mwing

M. Wing   ·  February 18, 2007 05:29 PM

Let's see, now when we pull out,the Bushes and the Cheneys will be gone and the hands on the armed services will be those of Mrs. Pelosi, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Reid. Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Durbin and Mr. Leahy and Mr. Levin and the newly elected president, whoever that might be. Do you see a stronger, safer and securer nation? I don't. mwing

M. Wing   ·  February 18, 2007 05:31 PM

Dear David,

Fevered though your brain may be, do try to take your time when formulating and typing your comments. Judging from what you submitted, I'd suppose you were a pre-teen on a Red Bull high.

For that matter, please explain how you define "large majroityh of Americans" [sic]. Indeed, in Lefty-World, "large majroityh" only refers to those who reside in such centers of parlor Marxist group-think as San Francisco, Berkeley, Austin, Ann Arbor, and UNC-Chapel Hill: nobody else counts.

Capisce, paisan?

Mark Jaeger   ·  February 18, 2007 05:52 PM

the obsession with Sen Clinton is amusing...

Senator Clinton will be, in all likelihood, the Democratic Party's nominee for president and, in my opinion, very probably the next president of the United States and we're just, for some odd reason, obsessed with her policy views and formulations?

Okay.

SteveMG   ·  February 18, 2007 05:54 PM

The irony is that from what I read in Fiasco, Desert Fox might have been the ideal time to topple Saddam Hussein.

--|PW|--

pennywit   ·  February 18, 2007 06:39 PM

Amusing? Now is the time to be obsessed with every potential candidates position on the war on terror and the portion of it being fought in Iraq.

We were deprived of this discussion in 2004 because the democrats nominated Kerry. No one took anything he said about the war in Iraq seriously. Not his party, not the other party. "Stay the course" was phony on its face.

So the choice was Iraq War and Me too, but a little less. Where did that get us. If Dean had been the nominee we would have had the truly national debate we deserved.

Alan Rabinowitz   ·  February 18, 2007 07:13 PM

David Still's comment declaring that a large majority of Americans want us out of the cesspool is alarming. My contention has been for some time that the Bush Administration is fighting a war on terror (whether he does it well or ill is not my point here). His political opposition is fighting an entirely different battle - for the Soul of America. When the Democrats won a narrow electoral victory, or when polls look to be in their favor, they feel they have "won" the real conflict. They give very little play to how we might win against terrorists, but quite a bit to how they can win against neocons. The David Still's of the world seem to just naturally put their energy into the American political question. When pressed, they might maunder about how badly Bush has done and how they would do better, but it seems quite an afterthought.

As to that supposed political victory, it is fair to point out that most Americans would not agree with Mr. Still's comment as written. There is no majority for "just get us out," and no surveys at all about "cesspool." From the narrow November victory, the Democratic Left extrapolates that a majority of Americans agree with their most fevered positions. This is why government by our guys/your guys is such a dangerous formulation, and not coincidentally, why government by polls is misleading.

Assistant Village Idiot   ·  February 18, 2007 07:15 PM

Here is where the Dems stand on the war.

66% think winning is important.

58% think we will win.

If the Dems go with their rabid base and repudiate the mainstream they are gonners in '08.

OTOH if they repudiate their base and go with the mainstream they are gonners.

Tough choice.

M. Simon   ·  February 18, 2007 07:24 PM

Uh, I was misinformed.

53% of Dems think winning is important.
63% of Independents
85% of Republicans


43% of Dems are hopeful.
80% of Republicans
53% of Independents.

The rest of my comment stands:

If the Dems go with their rabid base and repudiate the mainstream they are gonners in '08.

OTOH if they repudiate their base and go with the mainstream they are gonners.

Tough choice.

M. Simon   ·  February 18, 2007 07:32 PM

I hate to dispute you on polling numbers from the Democrat base, whatever that is. But my own polling is based on anectodal evidence from several old codgers, both Democrats; one is an 80+ year old veteran of Iwo Jima, the other a retired wildcat oil rigger about the same age.
Both grudingly supported Bush when he went into Iraq. They didn't trust him completely, but gave the benefit of the doubt.
Not any more.
As to winning in Iraq, they think it's hopeless, either with a preppy like Bush, or a "realist" like Hillary.
My partner and I see no other alternative but to confront the Islamo-Fascits on their own turf, but concede the fact that for whatever reason, be it MSM tarnishing, simple war fatigue, or incompetence, the majority of the electorate will not elect a Republican in '08
no matter who's the candidate.
When the "Reagan" Dems are lost, so is the Republican candidate.

Frank   ·  February 18, 2007 11:14 PM

I think we ought to talk up Hillary's proposal for a 90-day deadline. Call it the "Hillary Hightail" or the "Clinton withdrawal", (although that moniker has another referent). No copyright on either designation -- talk 'em up. F

F   ·  February 18, 2007 11:24 PM

I think that the Iraqis are just a few years away from an HRC policy shift that will force gay marriages amongst muslims in Iraq. That will be the equalizing policy shift that HRC will use to balance the equation

Alan Enid   ·  February 19, 2007 10:50 AM

Will the Democrats BDS obsession with embarrassing George Bush extend to the end of 2008, when Bush is not a candidate?

Will they still be saying, "elect us, because Bush is a miserable failure?"

To my thinking, this preoccupation with humiliating Bush, even at the risk of surrender in Iraq and encouragement of the Islamic terrorists to attack us here, will ultimately lead to massive Democrat loses in 2008.

Despite MSM conditioning, the public is too smart to elect people with hatred as a sole agenda when there is a sensible alternative.

William   ·  February 19, 2007 12:44 PM

At the risk of being repetitive, and knowing I am repeating myself.

When you have Democrats in congress that do not know the difference between Sunni and Shiite, who think that Al Quida is run by Shiites and THEY sit on the intelligence committee. When you have the likes of Larry King on CNN, who does not know what the Battle of the Bulge was all about, when you have unrelenting criticism of the war in Iraq since day one from the press (remember we were bogged down in our advance to Baghdad on the third day of the start, and it was all "down hill" from that point on. What can you expect from the general public? Those that are blindly indifferent to public affairs, and whose sum total of knowledge of the History of Iraq, the rule of Saddam Hussein, the acts perpetrated by his regime against Iran, Kuwait, and his own nationals are the 3 minute sound bites they get from NBC, CBS, and ABC, or what is reported by the AP, and New York Times. These idiotis (hats off to Christopher Hitchens) are the blind, senseless mob that was once the Lynch mobs of the old west, and are now the core constituency of the Democratic Party. You fire up the mob, provide them with ropes and torches and send the baying at the White House for the "blood" of President Bush. Never once seeming to understand the Clinton administration, the intelligence agencies of Germany, Egypt, Jordan, all "knew" that Saddam had "weapons of mass destruction", and was trying to go "nuclear". It was not Bush and Blair massaging intelligence, or lying to the world about Saddam. It was our precipitous withdrawal from Mogadishu after the “Black Hawk down” incident that led these terrorists to believe that the USA did not have the “stomach” to take casualties, and the democrats are proving them right. This war with terrorists was not started by George Bush, and leaving Iraq, will only embolden them. Just read what the Al Quida has written and said.

*Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979;
* Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983;
* Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983;
* Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988;
* First New York World Trade Center attack 1993;
* Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996;
* Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998;
* Dares Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998;
* Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000;
* New York World Trade Center 2001;
* Pentagon 2001.
All the above took place before we invaded Iraq. Until we prove to these Islamo facists that, as President Kennedy once pronounced “We will pay any price” The free world will be at the mercy of these fanatics

Mike Roth   ·  February 19, 2007 04:12 PM

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