Do you believe Hillary when she says "After 9/11, I would never have taken us to war in Iraq"?

[jefferson_dem]

Here's the full quote: "After 9/11, I would never have taken us to war in Iraq...I would have stayed focused on Afghanistan because the real threat was coming from there."

Do you believe her?

[MH1]

1. Yes. Not a Hillary fan, but I don't think Hillary or any other liberal Dem would have invaded Iraq.

In fact, if Gore were president then 9/11 wouldn't have happened. I think the same could be said for Kerry, Hillary, and almost any other reasonably competent Dem Senator.

[Fredda Weinberg]

7. I'm afraid 9/11 was inevitable. We suffered WTC '93 & the embassy

bombings & the Cole. Thing was ... the public was focused on a red dress. I'm afraid the veronica is up again now, distracting us from third world turmoil.

[MH1]

13. BushCo *totally* ignored the warnings.

I think - no, I know - Gore would have responded more intelligently and done the things necessary to prevent it from happening. It did not take the support of the press to ensure that the FBI had the go-ahead to take needed steps and understood the urgency, or to put the right people in various security agencies in touch with each other.

We never would have known that there was a real threat.

[Fredda Weinberg]

19. The FBI was dysfunctional under Bill. Can we agree on that?

His intentions were good but the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.

[MH1]

22. I'm not so sure about that.

And even being somewhat dysfunctional, with better leadership they could have gotten the job done. There were some threats that were defeated during Clinton's term.

But it is possible you are right that Gore would still have failed to prevent 9/11. We won't ever really know!

But, can we agree that Gore would not have ignored the warnings, and would have taken intelligent steps to try to prevent the attack?

[Fredda Weinberg]

23. Absolutely. I reach my conclusion reluctantly and only based on

other attempts that got through in that era.

[robbedvoter]

14. Not so sure. Clinton left measures in place, Gore/Hart had a report on security

measures at airports...W canceled and discarded it all - I remember Bremer said at the time - "something bad may happen - these people left it all open" - or something of the sort.

[Fredda Weinberg]

21. But the blades were legal. 9/11 was no fluke, nor were Khobar towers

Which is why I can't support hope in this election. I know enough that this is not a partisan threat.

[robbedvoter]

2. Bill Clinton resisted the neocons - I'm going with that. So, yes. Unlike this guy:

MATTHEWS: OK. I just want to get one thing straight so that we know how
you would have been different in president if you had been in office
the last four years as president. Would you have gone to Afghanistan?

EDWARDS: I would.

MATTHEWS: Would you have gone to Iraq?

EDWARDS: I would have gone to Iraq.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3131295 /

[H2O Man]

3. Yes.

I do.

[wtmusic]

4. I believe her, but she was negligent as hell

to put the keys to the car in the hands of a dry drunk.

[TwilightZone]

5. What possible reason would she have had?

Anyone who believes that she would have made the same ridiculous decisions that Bush did, with different advisors and under different circumstances, is fooling themselves.

[NYCGirl]

6. Yes. I don't think she would've invaded Iraq had she been President.

I still can't quite forgive her for the IWR vote, though.

[Lucinda]

8. Of course I do. Junior had an agenda. NO Dem POTUS would have acted as he did.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. Yes. The Bush Administration already had planned to nuke Iraq and take it over....

If it hadn't been 9/11, they would've find lots of other excuses to attack, invade, destroy and take over Iraq. It was done for oil and Israel and nothing else.

[THUNDER HANDS]

10. of course

but, like Kerry and Edwards, she voted for the war because she thought she'd never be able to become president if she didn't.

[KittyWampus]

11. Other, I think the NeoCons would have fed her info thru their nefarious methods- she'd have attacked

due to pressure coming from NeoCons, bogus intel, media manipulation by hawks.

It probably would have happened a bit later, though. The NeoCons would have had to plant a lot more crap first.

Just because Cheney wouldn't have been in the WH doesn't mean he and his flying monkeys wouldn't have been able to cook up bad intel and intimidated various players.

Note- she has and will always be trying to out-testosterone the boys.

[Skinner]

12. I have no doubt in my mind. Hillary would not have taken us to War in Iraq.

I don't think any Democrat would have done it.

The fact that some of them voted for this war is not proof that they would have started it themselves. It takes a special kind of evil to completely manufacture a war from nothing.

[KittyWampus]

15. Just because a Dem is in office, doesn't mean the NeoCons/Hawks would stop manufacturing

war from nothing. It's their speciality as is using the corporate media to weaken Democrats so they have a hard time standing up to
the push for war.

[jeff30997]

17. I totally agree.

:thumbsup:

[featherman]

16. Frankly neither would most Republican Presidents

It took a unique circumstance of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfield ignorance/arrogance to launch such an insane, self-destructive operation. Most other administrations in US history would have continued inspections and worked with the UN to resolve the issues with Iraq...

[Nimrod2005]

18. I don't trust anything she says!

[ButterflyBlood]

20. Votes speak louder than words.

No.

[pnwmom]

30. She voted for the Oct. compromise IWR because the alternative was that

when the Rethugs swept into their majorities in Jan., they were going to pass an IWR with or without any votes from Dems. And the Bush-preferred IWR was a complete blank check that would have allowed them to attack Iran or anywhere else they chose.

So a number of Dems, including HRC, decided to work with the Rethugs to approve a compromise version to head off the worse version.

None of this gives me ANY reason to suspect if HRC or any Democrat had been President in 2002, that we would have decided to attack Iraq, because Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11.

[ButterflyBlood]

32. LOL. Compromise?

What did that give us?

I was here on DU when that passed and no one was making excuses for the IWR. EVERYONE was opposed. And Hillary was rightfully demonized for voting for it. Why can't she just admit she was wrong to vote for it like Edwards and Kerry have?

[earthlover]

24. Hillary was a friggin ACCOMPLICE to the crime....

she voted for the war. How can she say she would do anything different? If Hillary was president, whe would be facing similar pressures, and would likely react the same way to a similar foreign policy non-crisis. Like she did with regard to Iran....

[hayu_lol]

26. It appears that many of you were not aware of what came down...

during the Bush/Senate hearings just before the IWR signing.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Pearle, and Feith formed a group, The Iraq Study Group to write the intelligence that was presented to the Senate. The FBI/CIA material did not give this unsavory bunch the means to attack Iraq--one of their targets in the PNAC document.

Using this cooked intelligence to get the IWR signed, Bush, instead of doing what he told the Congress he would do: keep the inspectors doing their jobs and go to the Security Council of The United Nations, Bush went off to war...ummm...he sent others off to war. There was little delay since Americans were filling our streets in protest...the world was putting millions in the streets in protest...and my hunch is that Bush/Cheney decided it was 'now or never.' And, as they say, the rest is history. Don't forget Colin Powell's shameful speech to the UN. Don't forget Rumsfeld's comment: I know where the WMD are, they are north, south, east, and west of Tikrit. And yeah, those are his words in reply to a query from our inspectors who asked him to give them the known location so that they could find the unfindable.

Lets really try hard to remember that it was Bush who went...not Hillary. Also that there were 76 Senators who signed the damned thing...not just Hillary.

You can google:

Iraq Study Group
PNAC

[closeupready]

29. It could have been all 100 Senators, could have been 5. Regardless, she was one of them.

n/t

[TwilightZone]

31. People have conveniently 'forgotten' everything about the situation but the vote.

[earthlover]

33. Hillary didn't even bother to read the intelligence report....

others read it, and voted against the IWR as a result....not all of them Democrats by the way!

Hillary not only voted for the IWR, she voted against every amendment that would have bought some time, sent it back to UN, etc.

No, she did not actually commit the crime. But, in a very real sense, she was an ACCOMPLICE. She did nothing to stop it, not even try.

[Kahuna]

25. I believe her. That's why it was stupid for her to risk giving willful

bush her vote.

[closeupready]

27. While I believe this is true, she DID help authorize invading Iraq.

n/t

[Adelante]

28. Yes, I believe her

It does not excuse her IWR vote to my mind. But I don't believe, had she been president, she would have gone into Iraq. She's not a PNACer.

[MadHound]

34. No, her own vote on the IWR belies her statement

If she really believed in this, then she wouldn't have voted for the IWR. Instead, she went ahead and ignored her constituents, and enabled the Bush administration to conduct an illegal, immoral war. Sorry, but this kind of shit is just one more reason that I can't vote for her. She makes these outrageous statements that are easily disproven and she looks foolish doing so. All she is doing with this is once again flip-flopping, trying to pick up some of the anti-war vote. Sorry, but she's not getting mine, nor do I think that there are many who will be fooled by her bullshit.

[MethuenProgressive]

35. Our beef was with Osama in Afghanistan. I believe her.

This poll isn't working out the way ObamaNation wanted it too.
:thumbsup:

[rucky]

36. 100% nt

[rolleitreks]

37. Yes. The only person who would lead us into Iraq is the idiot who did. n/t