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Obama Slams Clinton on Iraq
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ShareSeptember 12, 2007 3:29 PM
ABC News' Jonathan Greenberger reports: In the aptly named Clinton, Ia., Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., yet again took aim at his chief rival for the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., over her initial support for the war in Iraq.
"Conventional thinking in Washington lined up for war," said Obama in a speech Wednesday afternoon that was billed by his campaign as a "major national security address."
"Despite, or perhaps because of how much experience they had in Washington, too many politicians feared looking weak and failed to ask the hard questions. Too many took the president at his word instead of reading the intelligence for themselves. Congress gave the president the authority to go to war. Our only opportunity to stop the war was lost."
Obama also expressed dissatisfaction with the course of the discussion occurring now in Washington over the future of American involvement in Iraq, calling the debate "unreal."
"The bar for success is so low that it is almost buried in the sand," he said.
Obama rejected calls to replace Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, as Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards have.
"Some argue that we should just replace Prime Minister Maliki. But that wouldn't solve the problem," said Obama. "We shouldn't be in the business of supporting coups. And remember –- before Maliki, we said that we just needed to replace the last Prime Minister to make everything all right. It didn't work."
Obama offered a new plan for withdrawal from Iraq, which calls for immediately beginning to withdraw some combat troops from Iraq, with all combat troops gone by the end of next year. Obama admitted that he would keep some so-called "residual troops" in Iraq and the region to go after al Qaeda and protect American interests in the country.
But while Obama took shots at his rivals in his speech, he quickly became the punching bag for other Democratic and Republican candidates for president.
Rival presidential candidate Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., pounced on Obama's willingness to keep troops in Iraq, sending out a press release asking, "How does leaving troops in Iraq 'end the war'?"
Sen. Chris Dodd also attacked Obama's speech preemptively, saying he was "disappointed" Obama did not call for a "firm, enforceable deadline for redeployment."
And Edwards, not to be left out, claimed that Obama's plan "could essentially mimic the president's own plans."
"Senator Obama would withdraw only 1-2 combat brigades a month between now and the end of next year," said Edwards. "Taking credit for this gradual withdrawal is like taking credit for gravity. These 30,000 troops would have to be withdrawn anyway, unless the president extended tours to an unconscionable 18 months."
Republican candidate for president former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., also called out Obama on the stump today, saying in Midland, Tex., that after hearing Obama's plan for Iraq, his first thought was "thank heavens Barack Obama wasn't president."
Obama spoke at Ashford University in eastern Iowa before a standing-room only but subdued crowd. He was introduced by former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who called the Iraq war a "colonial war in a post-colonial era" that was justified by "mendacity."
At the start of his speech, Obama told the inevitable jokes about speaking in a town called Clinton, saying he hopes the headlines coming out of the speech read, "Clinton gives Obama standing ovation."
With additional reporting by Raelyn Johnson, Donna Hunter, and Matt Stuart.
September 12, 2007 in Tancredo, Tom | Permalink | User Comments (11)
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A foreign policy slam is in order for a campaign which relies on Sandy Berger for national security advise--when he legally cannot get a security clearance for THREE YEARS due to pleading guilty to stealing and destroying highly classified documents.
But hey, Bergler saved Bill Clinton's butt from the 9-11 commission.
Why don't the 9-11 Truthers ever get paranoid over that?
Posted by: obama-rama | Sep 12, 2007 4:40:22 PM
Sen. Obama is almost as good as George Bush at setting up straw men. Sen. Clinton did not say that just replacing Maliki would solve the problem in Iraq. Nor did she call for a coup. Iraq is a titular parliamentary democracy and doubtless has procedures for legitimately changing governments. However, Sen. Clinton did note that Maliki's government has failed to take advantage of the surge to effectuate political reconciliation. Although, as Senator Clinton noted, the surge was mistaken from its inception, the fact remains that this troop increase is taking American lives. It's unbelievable that Maliki hasn't maximized this opportunity to make some progress on the political front. And still more unbelievable that an American politician would refuse to take him to task for failing to do whatever little he could to take advantage of these supreme sacrifices on the part of our troops.
Posted by: dawn | Sep 12, 2007 5:06:40 PM
How easily these people were fooled by the bushbaby cheeny crowd should frighten anybody. Has nobody noticed that with bill clinton hugging daddy number 41's pantaloons that the sandy berger ploy was actually covering for bush 43???????? An impeachment proceeding might ferret that out...
Posted by: daddy | Sep 12, 2007 5:14:13 PM
THEY NEED TO IMPEACH CHENEY FOR THE HALIBURTON-IRAQ CONTRACT SCANDELS.
Posted by: moderateistheway | Sep 12, 2007 5:30:50 PM
The solution is: STOP VOTING REPUBLICANS INTO OFFICE SO THAT THE CONGRESS HAS ENOUGH VOTES TO START BRINGING AN END TO THIS STUPID WAR IN IRAQ. Period.
Posted by: moderateistheway | Sep 12, 2007 6:35:56 PM
Excellent speech by Senator Obama as he has shown time and time again, that he has the leadership, judgement and understanding of how the problems and issues that face the Middle East and Iraq.
Sen. Obama understands the possible consequences if U.S. troops are withdrawn too hastily, but the main point being that the troops cannot continue to police a civil war.
We need leadership and Sen. Dodd, John Edwards, Sen. Biden and Sen. Clinton have already displayed their lack of leadership and judgement when they voted to go into this quagmire almost 5 years ago.
Posted by: Marcus Bush | Sep 12, 2007 8:25:07 PM
Redeployment? Is that what we did when ran from the warlords in Mogagishu?
Osama Bin Laden Used our "Redployment" in Somalia as a rallying call to defeat the weak and cowardly infidels. (His describtion of us) It directly led to the establishment of Alqueda as the premier terrorist organization in the world, and resulted in attacks in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, Bali, and finally New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, London, and Madrid!
Redeployment? That's like saying a "willing suspension of disbelief"
Call it surrender, call Petreus a liar, oral sex is sex, taking money from Chinese communist for your campaign is treason. Selling pardons to contribution bundlers is crimial.
What a crock?
Posted by: Phil Bickel | Sep 12, 2007 10:43:59 PM
Give Obama credit for trying to come to some solution to end the Iraq invasion -I don't call it a war. And I am still unclear who the heck the Americans are fighting and why!!
The BIG issue that people are overlooking is the Bush lied to the American people and Congress by claiming Iraq owned weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein was a threat to the US. What a lie.
Why are there not massive cries of impeachment to call Bush on those lies?
The whole Iraq invasion was based on lies to begin with. How can anyone now trust what comes out of the Bush Administration? I say let's impeach Bush and Cheney.
Posted by: Andrea Taylor | Sep 12, 2007 11:11:38 PM
Hey why is no one but foxnews reporting that Norman Hsu was jailed in Colorado today and Hillary gave a statement saying the donors connected with him could re-donate the money back after she returned it. Once again, liberal media bias.
Posted by: big picture observer | Sep 13, 2007 12:06:22 AM
I am so tired of hearing President Bush
being called a liar for getting us in this war. I just sit and read as well as listen to news radio and although it was my belief he wanted to get rid of the Saddam Hussain leader ship our President was fed up with the UN after 10 years of no action on the sanctions they passed on Irag. If he lied so did a large part of the western world
Posted by: WAYNE | Sep 13, 2007 5:43:35 PM
Well of course they wouldn't say Clinton gives Obama a standing ovation, not this soon, her egoes wouldn't let them do that... But soon enough she will gracefully bow out and shake hands.
Posted by: staysmart | Sep 14, 2007 3:25:45 PM
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