Bill Clinton Tells Iowans He Opposed Iraq From Start

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

WAR STANCE

Bill Clinton Tells Iowans He Opposed Iraq From Start

Former president Bill Clinton said yesterday that he "opposed Iraq from the beginning," glossing over the more nuanced views of the war he has expressed over time. Clinton made the remarks while campaigning for his wife in Iowa -- a state where many Democrats are against the war -- and as he expressed bitterness over getting a tax cut with money that could have been spent on the military.

"Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers," Clinton said. He said he "should not have gotten" the tax cuts he received as a wealthy earner.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) voted to authorize the war in Iraq and has never apologized for her vote, even as the Democratic nominating process has intensified and she has been drawn into a three-way race with a pair of more outspoken Iraq war foes, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Both the former president and his wife have grown increasingly critical of the war's management in recent years. Both have also pointed to their remarks, made before the invasion, in which they said they would like to see weapons inspectors finish their work in Iraq before the launch of an attack -- a distinction that has allowed both Clintons to claim consistency on Iraq.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has, at times, even cited the experience her husband had dealing with the Iraqi government in the 1990s as one reason that she gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt when she voted for the war in 2002.

Jay Carson, a spokesman for the Clintons, pointed to those comments about weapons inspections as evidence that the former president was not trying to rewrite history. "As he said from the beginning and many times since, President Clinton disagreed with taking the country to war in Iraq without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their jobs," Carson said.

But past remarks made by the former president do leave open a question about how fervently Clinton opposed the war at the outset and before it grew widely unpopular. In immediate hindsight, Clinton did not sound like a fierce critic.

"I supported the president when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Clinton said on May 18, 2003, during a commencement speech at Tougaloo College in Mississippi.

-- Anne E. Kornblut

SUPERMAN DIPLOMACY

Obama Camp Takes On Foreign Policy Concerns

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- There was no mistaking the purpose of a foreign policy wonkfest that Barack Obama's campaign convened here Tuesday for the benefit of 120 New Hampshire voters and the attendant television cameras. Amid stepped-up attacks by Hillary Clinton asserting that Obama lacks the experience to take on a dangerous world, the Obama camp turned loose a half-dozen of the foreign policy experts in his fold to show the world the kind of high-caliber minds advising the first-term senator, who joined the panel of experts after nearly two hours of their deep ruminations.

Noticeable among all the chin-tugging foreign policy talk was the unlikely tack that the experts took in making their case that Obama possesses the necessary experience for the job. One might expect that campaign advisers in their shoes would try to play down the risks that the country faces at this moment in time, to make voters more comfortable about handing the reins to someone who only three years ago was serving in the Illinois General Assembly. Instead, the panelists went in the exact opposite direction.

They talked about what a perilous position the country now finds itself in on multiple fronts -- from the threat of anti-American extremism to nuclear proliferation to global warming -- and concluded that only Obama could save the day.

John Hutson, a retired rear admiral and judge advocate general in the Navy who is now head of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., summarized the state of affairs as follows: "I'm very sad and very worried about what's happened to our foreign policy. I'm very worried that historians are going to look back at the early days of the 21st century and say that's where the U.S. got derailed, that's where we made a wrong turn, that's where the U.S. began to become the next former great power."

What the country and the world needed at such a dangerous time, the advisers said, was Obama's fresh perspective, candor and ability to bridge gaps within the country and around the world. The praise of their man conjured a veritable Superman of diplomacy. "It would be transformative overnight," Anthony Lake, national security adviser in the Clinton administration, said of the worldwide effect of an Obama victory. All this buildup was a tough act to follow once Obama finally joined the panel -- audience members would have been forgiven for expecting the ghost of Dean Acheson in his place given all the hype.

But he mostly held his own, seeming to relish the chance to show off his foreign policy knowledge and academic side. He focused his remarks around the need for "openness" in foreign policy (with the implication that not only President Bush but also Hillary Clinton have lacked forthrightness) and offered long, discursive answers to the audience's almost comically erudite questions, including one from a small-business man about the global supply chain's role in the reduction of world conflicts. Another, from a former student of Margaret Mead, on the need for a more anthropological mind-set in the foreign service, resulted in Obama observing: "My mother was an anthropologist, so the Margaret Mead reference, I'm always hip to."

Afterward, some of the Obama gurus were asked why they were offering such a dark view of world affairs as part of a pitch for a candidate with a short foreign policy r¿sum¿. They answered that it would be foolish to pretend otherwise. "It is a perilous time," said Susan Rice, former assistant secretary of state for African Affairs. "It's dishonest to deny that, and one thing we don't want to be is dishonest."

-- Alec MacGillis

WHADDYA SAY?

Supporter Presses Biden To Trumpet Achievements

ALLISON, Iowa -- It was an unusual moment for anyone who knows Sen. Joe Biden. The man was speechless.

Midway through a 90-minute session in a library in this farming town, J.R. Ackley, who owns an insurance business in Marble Rock, noted that the top three Democrats in the field, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and former senator John Edwards, have short Senate r¿sum¿s compared to Biden, elected in 1972.

"It's like three witches sitting around arguing about who's ugliest," Ackley said. "Hillary Clinton, her claim to fame is she's spent time in the White House. Why haven't you taken these guys on head-on? I understand it's hard, but the disparity of experience and ability is so great, it's not even funny. And yet they're the ones getting all the press."

Most Democrats at the back of the pack, Biden included, have avoided taking shots at the front-runners. As Ackley, wearing a Biden T-shirt, egged on his candidate, Biden stood at the front of the room, head lowered in his hands, face reddening.

"Thank you for your assessment of my capabilities," he responded. "I admit I've been reluctant. My career in public life and the way I've run all the time is, I've run based on what I am and what I can do, not what the other guy is or isn't."

Biden went on to discuss many of his rival candidates, staying positive, as he said he would -- "John, I love John," he said of Edwards, calling Obama a "great guy" and praising the "really good work" done by Clinton.

-- Shailagh Murray