“I’ve reached the conclusion that the best way to support our troops is begin bringing them home,” the New York senator and former first lady told CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.” “I don’t believe we should continue to vote for funding that has an open-ended commitment, that has no pressure on the Iraqi government to make the tough political decisions they have to make, or which really gives any urgency to the Bush administration’s diplomatic efforts.”
She had this to say to Tim Russert:
I have made it clear that if the president does not begin to extricate us from Iraq before he leaves office, which apparently, based on what he himself has said, he will not, when I am president, I will immediately ask my secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my security advisers, to tell me exactly what the state of play is. I don’t believe we even know everything we need to know about what the plans for withdrawal are, how best to implement that. And I will end our involvement at the level that we’ve seen that has not proven to be successful.
“Gosh darn it! If President Bush won’t get us out of Iraq, then I’m going to ask for a status report — and make sure someone drafted a withdrawal plan!” When asked by George Stephanpolous on This Week whether she would commit to withdrawing all troops before the end of her first term, Clinton refused:
Asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos whether she would withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq during a first term as president, Clinton (D-N.Y.) gave a simple answer: She did not know. But she used more than 225 words to say so. “You know, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don’t know what I’m going to inherit, George. I don’t know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become?” Clinton said. “What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what’s going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed al-Qaeda in Iraq out of their strongholds with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheiks or will they have regrouped and retrenched?” She continued: “I don’t know, and I think it’s not appropriate to be speculating. I can tell you my general principles and my goal. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to do so carefully, responsibly, with the withdrawal of our troops, also, with the withdrawal of a lot of our civilian employees, the contractors who are there, and the Iraqis who have sided with us.
So Senator Clinton favors beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but refuses to commit to a full drawdown before January, 2013. She is therefore leaving the door open to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for approximately 10 years–depending on the strategic realities, the threat posed by Iran, the interests of our Iraqi partners, etc. How exactly is this position different from that of President Bush?
