Hillary's Claim: I Wouldn't Have Started Iraq War

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During a campaign stop in Nashua, Hillary Clinton might have just stepped on the beehive that has already caused her so much trouble in this campaign. "After 9/11, I would never have taken us to war in Iraq," she said, according to Ben Smith. "I would have stayed focused on Afghanistan because the real threat was coming from there."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton immediately pounced, bringing up Hillary's 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq War: "Hillary Clinton may try to rewrite history, but it's hard to believe she didn't know what would happen after she voted for a resolution with the title "A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq."

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/hill...ed_iraq_war.php

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Not to defend her - but this provides some context. That said, Hilly has been a bit didactic in her stand on the war.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/s012804b.html

Congressional Record: January 28, 2004 (Senate)

Page S311-S312

NEW INFORMATION ON IRAQ'S POSSESSION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to

the Senator from North Dakota for the case that he has made, which has

been very disturbing to us as two Senators, because the information we

have received over the last several days causes us not only to scratch

our heads but to shake our heads--that the intelligence we received in

the secure rooms of this Capitol complex was either so faulty that we

are in a considerable degree of vulnerability, that we are not getting

accurate information upon which to defend this country, or that the

information that was presented to us was faulty not because of the

sources of that information and the analysis but there was some

suggestion of coloring that information to reach a certain conclusion.

I think this is far beyond Republicans and Democrats. This is about

defense of the homeland. This is about America. Just because this has

come up in January of an election year, with Dr. Kay coming forth and

telling us today in the Armed Services Committee that he concluded this

last November, then it is sure time for us to get some answers for the

protection of this country and its people.

I want to take this occasion to inform the Senate of specific

information that I was given, which turns out not to be true. I was one

of 77 Senators who voted for the resolution in October of 2002 to

authorize the expenditure of funds for the President to engage in an

attack on Iraq. I voted for it. I want to tell you some specific

information that I received that had a great deal of bearing on my

conclusion to vote for that resolution. There were other factors, but

this information was very convincing to me that there was an imminent

peril to the interests of the United States.

I, along with nearly every Senator in this Chamber, in that secure

room of this Capitol complex, was not only told there were weapons of

mass destruction--specifically chemical and biological--but I was

looked at straight in the face and told that Saddam Hussein had the

means of delivering those biological and chemical weapons of mass

destruction by unmanned drones, called UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles.

Further, I was looked at straight in the face and told that UAVs could

be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack eastern

seaboard cities of the United States.

Is it any wonder that I concluded there was an imminent peril to the

United States? The first public disclosure of that information occurred

perhaps a couple of weeks later, when the information was told to us.

It was prior to the vote on the resolution and it was in a highly

classified setting in a secure room. But the first public disclosure of

that information was when the President addressed the Nation on TV. He

said that Saddam Hussein possessed UAVs.

Later, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his presentation to

the United Nations, in a very dramatic and effective presentation,

expanded that and suggested the possibility that UAVs could be launched

against the homeland, having been transported out of Iraq. The

information was made public, but it was made public after we had

already voted on the resolution, and at the time there was nothing to

contradict that. We now know, after the fact and on the basis of Dr. Kay's testimony

today in the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the information was

false; and not only that there were not weapons of mass destruction--

chemical and biological--but there was no fleet of UAVs, unmanned

aerial vehicles, nor was there any capability of putting UAVs on ships

and transporting them to the Atlantic coast and launching them at U.S.

cities on the eastern seaboard.

I am upset that the degree of specificity I was given a year and a

half ago, prior to my vote, was not only inaccurate; it was patently

false. I want some further explanations. Now, what I have found after the fact--and I presented this to Dr.

Kay this morning in the Senate Armed Services Committee--is there was a

vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to what the CIA

had concluded was accurate about those UAVs and about their ability to

be used elsewhere outside of Iraq. Not only was it in vigorous dispute,

there was an outright denial that the information was accurate. That

was all within the intelligence community.

But I didn't find that out before my vote. I wasn't told that. I

wasn't told that there was a vigorous debate going on as to whether or

not that was accurate information. I was given that information as if

it were fact, and any reasonable person then would logically conclude

that the interests of the United States and its people were in

immediate jeopardy and peril. That has turned out not to be true.

We need some answers, and I saw the ranking member of the Armed

Services Committee ask the chairman for a further investigation into

this matter. I heard the chairman say: I will take it under

consideration.

I hope that is a positive sign and not a negative sign. We need to

get to the bottom of this for the protection of our country. It is too

bad this is coming up in the year 2004, which happens to coincide with

the Presidential election, because people are going to immediately say

this is partisan politics.

The fact is, this is the politics of the protection of our country,

and we need some answers. I don't want to be voting on war resolutions

in the future based on information that is patently false when

everybody is telling me, looking me eyeball to eyeball, that it is

true.

I am hoping, as the Senator from North Dakota has suggested, that we

have a convening of the appropriate intelligence officials in the

secure room and that members of the intelligence community, as well as

members of the administration, will come and explain, in addition to

what Dr. Kay has explained on the public record--which is revealing

enough in itself--what, in fact, happened and how we are going to

correct the process and the analysis of information so that we never

have this kind of miscalculation and misinformation again.

Either the intelligence community's self-examination, its analysis

was hugely faulty, or there were the hints at taking information and

coloring it, called stacking the news and coming out with a conclusion

that was wanted. I think we have to find out what happened.

It is not a question of whether or not Saddam Hussein ought to be

gone. Thank goodness he is gone. That probably had a very salutary

effect on the United States in that part of the world, that the United

States will back up its intentions with force. But when the United

States makes decisions about a preemptive war, a war now that has

claimed the lives of over 500 American men and women, then we have to

have a much higher standard of accuracy of the information upon which

we make the judgments to send America's finest on to the battlefield.

I can tell you about all the soldiers from Florida who are now laid

to rest. There are plenty of reasons I am raising these questions, but

if for no other reason than to raise the questions for the mamas and

the daddies and the spouses and the children of those soldiers. That is

plenty justification enough. But the justification is much greater, and

that is the justification of making sure we can protect ourselves in

the future.

In a war against terrorists, our defense is only going to be as good

as the information we receive to stop the terrorists. We had a colossal

failure of intelligence on September 11, 2 years ago. We can't afford

that kind of failure again. Yet we have just found out that when we

were given the reasons for going to war, that was faulty intelligence.

America can't afford too many more of these, for the protection of

ourselves and our loved ones.

[[Page S312]]

This is something of considerable concern to me personally. I know it

is of considerable concern to the rest of the Senate. I hope the

majority leader of this Senate, Senator Frist, is going to listen to

those of us in this Chamber who say that this request has nothing to do

with politics. Let's get to the bottom of what is the truth and how we

make sure that information in the future is true.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

*edited for clarity.

Edited January 6, 2008 by Number 6

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Number 6,

The 'context' you provide is great in hindsight. However, Her Highness is saying she wouldn't have invaded even though she authorized it and even though, at the time, she believed the intel. That the intel was wrong was something they 'discovered' after the actual invasion; as such, that information couldn't possibly have factored into a pre-invasion decisoin on whether or not to invade.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Number 6,

The 'context' you provide is great in hindsight. However, Her Highness is saying she wouldn't have invaded even though she authorized it and even though, at the time, she believed the intel. That the intel was wrong was something they 'discovered' after the actual invasion; as such, that information couldn't possibly have factored into a pre-invasion decisoin on whether or not to invade.

Well she's just playing politics really isn't she. I'll vote this way if it gets me X, vote another way if it gets me Y.

Still I know plenty of people who didn't need the benefit of hindsight to decide that this was a generally bad idea; and that those people turned out to be essentially correct about the bogus case for "imminent threat" says a lot.

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Still I know plenty of people who didn't need the benefit of hindsight to decide that this was a generally bad idea...

Right. Obama knew. Hillary did not.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

She wishes she invented the internet too.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Obama maybe, but I was talking about members of the public.