Obama Hits Clinton On Iraq: I Was Always Against War

[carpe diem]

AMES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) drew a contrast with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Iraq war on Sunday and said it was unclear how she planned to end the conflict.

On the day after he formally launched his 2008 White House bid, Obama said on a campaign swing through Iowa that even before the war began it was possible to see the dangerous consequences of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"Even at the time, it was possible to make judgments that this would not work out well," the Illinois senator told reporters, indirectly contrasting his stance with presidential rivals Clinton and John Edwards, who both voted to authorize the war in 2002.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070212/pl_nm/usa_politics_obama_dc;_ylt=AnWWFKNYQZx8z2iHMJY.JRbMWM0F

[gravity]

1. Unfair criticism

Its easy to say you were always right on an issue you never had to vote for it. Of course every candidate now will say they wouldn't have voted for the Iraq war, but you never knew what there decision would have been in 2002.

[carpe diem]

2. ...but he is on the public record...

opposing this war and it's not his fault that others didn't have the courage of their convictions...ALOT of dems in the house and senate did have to vote on it and did vote against it. It's not fair that young men and women have died for the lies of this administration, but those that enabled them have to deal with the consequences...and this is one.

[Zandor]

9. Where is he on record?

Give me a link to a mainstrean news source that will verify that. Not that he later claimed he did, coverage of him actually saying it in 2002.

[never cry wolf]

10. October 26, 2002 speech in the Federal Plaza in Chicago

Senator Barack Obama (D-Il), then an Illinois state senator, delivered these remarks in October 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.

excerpt:
I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

snip-------

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Link to entire speech---> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech

I'm not sure what you consider mainstream, Obama himself wasn't very mainstream at the time. I don't have lexus-nexus but google Obama Iraq 2002 and the speech will come up numerous times. He made it, in public, on the record before the war.

edited to add: read the whole speech, he was spot on in his judgement!

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Well? We're Waiting

Never Cry Wolf gave you the evidence. And your comment?
The Professor

[never cry wolf]

16. Patience is a virtue

But I would like the pleasure of a "told ya so!"

:hi:

[Beelzebud]

13. Alls fair when your candidate votes for war.

[ContraBass Black]

17. I saw through it and opposed it loudly and publicly well before it started.

So did he. It's not hard to be right on an issue as obvious as this one was, and those who were and were ignored should point to it as an example of the reasoning that might make their future judgment sound.

[Imagevision]

3. Hillary has this Bush like quality thing about admitting when you're wrong

[Nutmegger]

4. I like Obama

I'm glad he's in. When I listen to him, I believe he will end the illegal occupation.

[Bobbieo]

6. Why does this have to be so GD nasty???? How is one

going to support the other if one of them is chosen VP???

[Nutmegger]

7. It doesn't matter to me at this point

I have preferences but I'll vote for the Dem and their chosen VP.

With that said, I reserve the right to critique what each candidate brings to the table and issue number one for me is Iraq.

[Bobbieo]

8. Those words spoken against another candidate sometimes come back

and bite the speaker on the ass!!! It is not good for the party.

[geek tragedy]

12. John McCain isn't going to criticize anyone

for voting for the IWR.

[Mechatanketra]

14. I thought actions speak louder than words.

Hence, what's not good for the party is having these f***ups of whom such words can be truthfully said in the first place.

No more yellowbrick Democrat candidates! What we need right now is someone with the brains to have known Bush (and pretty much the whole rest of the GOP) can't be trusted, the heart to give a damn about their corruption, and the nerve to take a stand against it. If you lack those qualities — as anyone who voted for the IWR clearly does — you're not qualified for the Oval Office.

[geek tragedy]

11. Voting records are fair game in primary contests.

Jeebus.

[treestar]

5. Senator Obama has Senator Clinton on that one

Don't know how she'll live it down!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Hillary's less than courageous vote is a well deserved anchor on her campaign.

I'm not an Obama supporter, but I hope he lambasts her at every opportunity for her pathetic support of Bush.

[paulk]

19. Obama reinforces the Republican meme that a "yes" vote

on the IWR was a vote for war.

[sampsonblk]

20. Its more than a Republican meme

Back when the war was popular, the Dems that voted for the IWR were all too happy to have us think they voted for the war. Now that the tide has turned, suddenly voting for the IWR is not the same as voting for the war. Oh boy...

[paulk]

22. I don't remember it being that way during the 2003 primaries

Karl Rove planned the IWR vote as a way to hurt Democrats leading up to the 2002 elections, rather than holding off the debate until afterwards, like Bush's father had during the first Gulf War.

Democrats, as usual, took the bait, and have been using the vote to trash each other with ever since.

[Tactical Progressive]

21. Neither Hillary nor any Dem voted for a war

If you want to mischaracterize the IWR as a vote for war, then you're just being dishonest. That's why Dems against Hillary and Kerry, etc always characterize it as a vote to go to war. Because telling the truth wouldn't make their point.

Listen to the speeches given around the IWR vote. They were about inspections and sanctions backed up with the authority to go to war, which they knew Saddam would take seriously.

Also, I didn't see where Obama said anything differently than any of them did. I didn't see where he came out against the IWR, only a war, same as everybody else, including Wes Clark. I may have missed that though, and am open to correction there.

IWR <> War without a lying, cheating President to make it so.

[killbotfactory]

23. So when did Hillary protest Bush cutting short inspections

bypassing the UN, and prematurely invading?

[sampsonblk]

24. But we already had a lying cheating pResident

This is about more than the speeches. Its about the events of the time. The brakes were being applied to GW Bush's rush to war. Bush needed to get something in-hand that showed the Congress approved of what he was doing. It arrived in the form of the IWR.

If not, then why have those IWR Dems not claimed Bush broke the law?