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Hillary Clinton Says She Wouldn't Have Voted For Iraq War

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December 18, 2006 4:02 PM

ABC News' David Chalian Reports:  As Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to assess a possible presidential candidacy and the contours of a Democratic nomination fight, she has taken another step away from her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq by saying that she "wouldn't have voted that way" if she knew everything she knows now.

Clinton has often been asked if she regrets her vote authorizing military action and she usually answers that question with an artful dodge, saying that she accepts responsibility for the vote and suggesting that if the Senate had all the information it has today (no WMD, troubled post-war military planning, etc. . .), there would never have been a vote on the Senate floor.

However, she has never gone as far as some of her potential rivals for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination -- who also voted for the war -- and called her vote a mistake or declared that she would have cast her vote differently with all the facts presently available to her -- until now.

This morning on NBC's "Today" show, Sen. Clinton was asked about her 2002 vote and offered a slightly evolved answer.  "Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn't have been a vote," she said in her usual refrain before adding, "and I certainly wouldn't have voted that way."

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) have both publicly declared regret for their votes for the war and have become advocates for withdrawing American troops from Iraq sooner rather than later.

Sen. Barack Obama, the freshman Senator from Illinois who is considering a presidential run and who may pose the single biggest threat to Clinton's bid for the nomination, wasn't in the Senate in 2002, but declared his opposition to the war at that time as a Senate candidate.

Sen. Clinton has long been viewed as potentially vulnerable on her left flank with regards to the war in a Democratic nomination fight where primary voters and caucus-goers tend to represent the more liberal wing of the party.  Clinton has made strides over the last year in speeches, committee hearings, letters to her constituents, and television appearances to criticize the Bush administration's general handling of the war and specifically calling for former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation. 

The Senator's comments on "Today" seem to continue a pattern of further distancing herself from her 2002 vote and an attempt to shore up that potentially vulnerable left flank on the issue that is likely to dominate the 2008 race for the White House as it did in 2004 and 2006.

In a statement to ABC News, Sen. Clinton's press secretary Philippe Reines didn't specifically address Clinton's remarks that she wouldn't have voted for the war, but instead referred to the Senator's previous comments about what would have been the likely overall congressional rejection of the war. 

"As she has long and often said, Senator Clinton believes that if we knew then what we know now, Congress never would have been asked to give the President authority to use force against Iraq, and if the President still asked Congress despite a lack of evidence, the Congress would not have agreed," said Reines.

December 18, 2006 in Tancredo, Tom | Permalink | User Comments (12)

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Hillary Clinton is awesome. She is getting my vote for sure.

Posted by: Shane | May 8, 2007 5:21:40 PM

I can't wait to vote for Hillary in 2008! Maybe now we can actually take care of social security and healthcare AND pay down the deficit...again! I won't even look back to see our old regime hit on its rear on the way out! Woo hoo! Hot dog! I am so happy! Keep it goin' Hillary! Bush won't know what hit him. I am so elated that we can actually get behind some positive people for a change who actually want progress for the American people.

Posted by: sophia | Jul 18, 2007 10:20:11 AM

Does Hillary Clinton have the capacity and veracity to discern an issue beyond its political value. For this independent/democrat the answer is no. Hillary now claims that it was the presidents responsibility to continue with the inspection process and work through the United Nations..
The time to insert that was in the bill passed in 2002 not now when she aspires to be the next President.

Posted by: Ken Wood, Boulder, Co | Aug 4, 2007 5:42:06 PM

I believe you are qualified to my satisfaction and that you will do an okay job for the country - I have no illusions that you will be one of the best presidents we will ever have simply because like all the rest you lie to us - you dodge the issues - you half answer the questions in the hope we will be quiet and just simply fall in line with whatever the government says nad does.but I can tolerate you better than an obama or edwards and uou will keep the judges liiberal in the supreme court which is one of the most important jobs of a president these days.

Posted by: marianne stewart | Aug 21, 2007 4:29:51 AM

this is so long you guys suck

Posted by: homie g | Sep 11, 2007 10:13:15 PM

If Hillary regreted ever voting to authorize military action on the war, then she should've been a bit more informed, after all, isn't that what our former presidents have gotten paid for?? We honestly don't need that kind of indecisiveness when it comes to issues of our nation. Imagine if she were to regret everything she did, this country would fall apart, and she'd be no better than our current ignorant president!!

Posted by: Chrisitina Soto | Sep 15, 2007 10:56:55 PM

If you were to look up fraud in the dictionary I bet you would see a picture of Bill and Hillary. I laugh at these blind libs who can't see through the bull, how much more obvious can it be. These are the biggest scam artist in the history of our country, period. She tells democrats everything that they want to hear (with her coached redundent talking points) until bammm she is in the White House then all hell is going to break loose, forget what she promised them it's her show now. If you think this administration has issues you have not seen anything yet. Putting this control freak in office would make our Founding Fathers roll in there graves, she is everything that they tried to prevent in our Constitution. We are on the path to total control of the people by the government if she makes it in. What we do, where you go, how we talk, where we go to the doctor and when, what you listen to, hell pretty soon she might have you sign your paycheck, pay to the order of the United States Gov't. I would vote for a female president if she had the resume, the right agenda, and the willingness to keep "WE THE PEOPLE", as it was meant to be. But this woman has the wrong agenda, and a tainted resume. "When I'm President" she says over a year before the votes are counted, sounds pretty scary to me. She is in for a rude awakening after the results come in, that is if Americans wake up and see her for what she is a "FRAUD"--One more thing--For all Iraq war haters I urge you people to take a look at the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act, there you will find Bill Clinton in his own words, saying the only way to rid Iraq of WMD's is to take Sadaam and his regime out of power(2 years before Bush). Also he states the he refuses to believe that a Democracy in Iraq is impossible to establish, do to Iraq's secratarian and ethnic differences, the same thing you have been hearing from Bush the since the beginning of the war. Also there is a list of things that Saddaam had done to his people in the years he was in power.

Posted by: Jay S. | Oct 5, 2007 1:14:15 AM

Im pretty darn glad that she wouldn't have voted for the war!!!!!!!

~A voter for Hillary

Posted by: Anonymus | Nov 8, 2007 12:49:14 PM

Im pretty darn glad that she wouldn't have voted for the war!!!!!!!

~A voter for Hillary

Posted by: Anonymus | Nov 8, 2007 12:49:17 PM

i luv hillary clinton because she is very smart nice responcible and her husband was a president too so she has experience and she will win
OKAY?
I love you hil!-*

Posted by: desi | Jan 2, 2008 4:57:09 PM

I am a republican I AM for the war yes war ben going on long. but you think abut this hillary Cliton we have not had a nother 911 when bush was in the office. now if you wear in the office you would not do nothen abut that. And we did capcher sandan of sin when he was in the office when your stupid husband was in the office he did not do that. he did not even try to that.

Posted by: Harold Baker | Jan 22, 2008 7:16:39 PM

At least she made a decision instead of the race crying Obama who always says present just to cover his butt. Obama is not some one I would want. Some one who just says present and plays it in his best interest. Talk about a cheap liar. Then his wife wrote a very racist paper some years back about standing up to the white people. This is also some one I would not want as fist lady. Obama says he isn't playing the race card but when ever Obama is attacked his campaign and supporters always throw the race card in there and say its racism? It feels like the sixties again and every one is crying race. I hear many people called by their whole name and they don't complain. If Obama is self conscious or ashamed of his middle name he should change it. If I was leaning towards Obama I'm am not now I am sick of hear RACE, RACE. For some one who says he is not running a campaign based on race his campaign and supporters sure throw it out there a lot.

Posted by: Fred | Feb 27, 2008 10:21:23 AM

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