The ProJo's Mark Arsenault asked Hillary Clinton yesterday about her vote for the war in Iraq:
The New York senator’s former Senate colleague, Rhode Island’s Lincoln D. Chafee, is highly critical of Clinton and other members of Congress who voted in 2002 for the resolution that gave President Bush the authority to attack Iraq. Chafee, who supports Obama, has suggested in his coming book that a vote for the resolution should be a career-ending lapse in judgment.
So why is Chafee wrong?
“I’m not going to contradict his personal opinion,” Clinton said. “That’s certainly his to hold. But I think there’s a lot of revisionist history going on here. At the time, it was very clear that we were hoping to rein in Saddam Hussein and determine what, if any, remaining weapons of mass destruction he had. Because the facts are, he had them when we went in after the first Gulf war.”
Clinton said she supported the threat of force to compel Saddam to accept inspections, and blames President Bush for abusing the authority extended by the resolution. “It was a sincere vote by me at the time, and if I had known what he would do with the vote, I would not have voted for it.”
Chafee, during a broadcast yesterday of 10 News Conference with Bill Rappleye, repeated his view that getting the Iraq vote wrong was a key leadership failure.
As I reported yesterday, demonstrators were on hand yesterday at RIC to protest Hillary's support for the war. I received some pix, but can't post them due to a tech issue.