Clinton foresees residual force in Iraq if she is elected

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Breaking on Drudge:

NYT: HILLARY MASTERS MILITARY

Mon Mar 26 2007 17:36:43 ET

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is working hard to master the ins and the outs of the United States military, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report.

Editors have set a Tuesday Page One placement for Pat Healy's detailed dispatch, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT..

Of all the early problems Bill Clinton faced as president, few stand out to Hillary as more aggravating and avoidable than his rocky relationship with the military, her advisers tell Healy.

Hillary, in effect, has been practicing her salute:

"She has cultivated relationships with generals and admirals, prepped herself on wartime needs and strategy and traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan."

Developing...

[Otto 83]

If race doesn't get in the way, I think Obama will be highly electable.

Never gonna happen...don't waste your votes..(and no..not because of his race)...

Edited March 26, 2007 by Karin und Otto

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The Democrats could nominate a gay athiest with prior felony convictions and under trial for genocide at the Hague... and still win. Beating the GOP in 2008 should be a cakewalk for any Dem.

Obama's real challenge will be beating Hillary.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I love the fact that Hillary is still characterised as a liberal. She's about as liberal as Margaret Thatcher.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I love the fact that Hillary is still characterised as a liberal. She's about as liberal as Margaret Thatcher.

"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" sounds pretty liberal to me.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Hillary is full of more ####### than a Christmas turkey.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I love the fact that Hillary is still characterised as a liberal. She's about as liberal as Margaret Thatcher.

"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" sounds pretty liberal to me.

I guess it depends how she follows up on the rhetoric with action. As for "taking things away for the common good", that's a pretty good description of Maggie's domestic economic policy.

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

I love the fact that Hillary is still characterised as a liberal. She's about as liberal as Margaret Thatcher.

"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" sounds pretty liberal to me.

amen

[yogib37 3]

I am sure the heck not vote Hilriay..She is crook. I dont trust her at all

if it comes down to Her and the GOP, I will vote GOP just to take a vote away from t hat carpet licking chopF**K

Yogi

[beameup 0]

These Democrats know precisely what the situation is in that region. They know the blunder of Jimmy Carter destabilizing Iran by withdrawing support for the Shah in favor of the RADICAL ISLAMIST Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Democrats also know of the blunders that Jimmy Carter made in Afganistan. That is what you get when you

elect an "honest man", a "Christian man" who has absolutely no experience - is unqualified as a president.

The "Treaty" with the House of Saud was established by Franklin Roosevelt. It essentially guaranteed their monarchy protection as long as they provided the oil that the West needed. That "treaty" is still in effect. The Sunnis control the holy sites and are (generally) the MODERATES. The Shiites of the NORTH are vying for more power and control of the region. This is nothing new. But it is DESTABILIZING and both the Democrats and Republican know this fact very well. What is needed, what is demanded, "what will be" - is somewhat of a "neutral zone" between the North & South in that region.

WASHINGTON: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton says that, if elected president, she foresees a "remaining military as well as political mission" in Iraq and would keep a reduced but significant military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview Tuesday in her Senate office, the New York senator said the scaled-down military presence she would maintain in Iraq would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence, even if it reached the level of ethnic cleansing. She declined to estimate the number of troops she would keep in Iraq.

In outlining how she would handle Iraq, Clinton articulated a more nuanced position than the one she provides at campaign events, where she has backed the goal of "bringing the troops home," a stance that pleases many of the Democratic voters she needs to win her party's nomination.

Rather, she said there were "remaining vital national security interests in Iraq" that would require an ongoing deployment of troops.

"So I think it will be up to me to try to figure out how to protect those national security interests and continue to take our troops out of this urban warfare, which I think is a loser, and I do not believe it can be successful," Clinton said.

She said it would matter to the United States if Iraq became a failed state that "serves as a petri dish for insurgents or Al Qaeda."

"It is right in the heart of the oil region," she said. "It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel's interests."

While Clinton criticized President George W. Bush's current troop reinforcements as an escalation of war, she also said of the plan, "We're doing it, and it's unlikely we can stop it."

"I'm going to root for it if it has any chance of success," she said of the Bush plan, "but I think it's more likely that the anti-American violence and sectarian violence just moves from place to place to place, like the old Whac-A-Mole. Clear some neighborhoods in Baghdad, then face Ramadi. Clear Ramadi, then it's back in Falluja."

The interview with Clinton is the first in a series that The New York Times is conducting with presidential candidates on Iraq.

Like other candidates for the Democratic nomination, Clinton has called for engaging Iran and Syria in discussions about stabilizing Iraq and has called on Bush to reverse his troop buildup. But it was clear in the interview that she believes the next president is likely to inherit an Iraq still plagued by sectarian fighting and occupied by a sizable number of U.S. troops.

"The choices that one would face are neither good nor unlimited," she said. "From the vantage point of where I sit now, I can tell you, in the absence of a very vigorous diplomatic effort on the political front and on the regional and international front, I think it is unlikely there will be a stable situation that's inherited."

On the campaign trail, Clinton has repeatedly vowed to bring the war to a close should the fighting still be going on if and when she takes office. "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will," she has said.

But in the interview, she suggested that it was likely that the fighting among the Iraqis would continue for some time, as would an American military presence. In broad terms, her strategy is to abandon the U.S. military effort to stop the sectarian violence and to focus instead on trying to prevent the strife from spreading throughout the region by rearranging American troop deployments within Iraq. She identified a potential location where some of the remaining forces might be based: an area that extends north of the Iraqi capital toward Kirkuk.

"It would be fewer troops," she said. "But what we can do is to almost take a line north of, between Baghdad and Kirkuk, and basically put our troops into that region: the ones that are going to remain for our anti-terrorism mission; for our northern support mission; for our ability to respond to the Iranians; and to continue to provide support, if called for, for the Iraqis."

Clinton described a mission with serious constraints. "We would not be doing patrols," she added. "We would not be kicking in doors. We would not be trying to insert ourselves in the middle between the various Shiite and Sunni factions. I do not think that's a smart or achievable mission for American forces."

Clinton acknowledged that under her strategy American troops would remain virtual bystanders if Shiites and Sunnis killed one another in sectarian attacks that resembled the ethnic cleansing campaigns in the Balkans.

"That may be inevitable — it certainly may be the only way to concentrate the attention of the parties," Clinton said.

Asked whether Americans would endure having troops in Iraq who do nothing to stop ethnic cleansing there, Clinton replied: "Look, I think the American people are done with Iraq. I think they're at a point where, whether they thought it was a good idea or not, they have seen misjudgment and blunder after blunder, and their attitude is, what is this getting us? What is this doing for us?"

"No one wants to sit by and see mass killing," she said. "It's going on every day. Thousands of people are dying every month in Iraq. Our presence there is not stopping it. And there is no potential opportunity I can imagine where it could.

"This is an Iraqi problem — we cannot save the Iraqis from themselves. If we had a different attitude going in there, if we had stopped the looting immediately, if we had asserted our authority — you can go down the lines, if, if, if."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/15/news/clinton.php

[Robor007 0]

The Democrats could nominate a gay athiest with prior felony convictions and under trial for genocide at the Hague... and still win. Beating the GOP in 2008 should be a cakewalk for any Dem.

Obama's real challenge will be beating Hillary.

Most people thought that in 2004 and look how it turned out.

[Caladan 19]

Clinton hasn't been aiming for the anti-war vote. She's been positioning herself as the Tough Woman Democrat, on the thought that she probably has the primary bought, and need to drive for the center already.

The anti-dumb-wars vote is going for Obama or Edwards.

beammeup, if Christ came back tomorrow, you'd be pissed off that he wasn't a registered Republican, wouldn't you?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The Democrats could nominate a gay athiest with prior felony convictions and under trial for genocide at the Hague... and still win. Beating the GOP in 2008 should be a cakewalk for any Dem.

Obama's real challenge will be beating Hillary.

Most people thought that in 2004 and look how it turned out.

Not so good...

[GaryC 7]

The Democrats could nominate a gay athiest with prior felony convictions and under trial for genocide at the Hague... and still win. Beating the GOP in 2008 should be a cakewalk for any Dem.

Obama's real challenge will be beating Hillary.

Most people thought that in 2004 and look how it turned out.

Not so good...

And it could get worse.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The Democrats could nominate a gay athiest with prior felony convictions and under trial for genocide at the Hague... and still win. Beating the GOP in 2008 should be a cakewalk for any Dem.

Obama's real challenge will be beating Hillary.

Most people thought that in 2004 and look how it turned out.

Not so good...

And it could get worse.

Worse? Not so sure. Maybe not much better would be more fitting.

Edited March 27, 2007 by ET-US2004