Does Gore support a withdrawl from Iraq?

[pstans]

There is all of this frenzy about Gore and possibly running in 2008. I admit I have been part of it. However, after watching Feingold on Meet the Press today, I got thinking about where Gore stands on Iraq. I know he is against the war. However, if Gore was in the Senate, would have voted for the Kerry-Feingold Ammendment to bring our troops home?

I haven't heard much about Gore and this. Any thoughts?

[whistle]

1. Al Gore is advocating withdrawal from GreenLand

[Redstone]

2. Meaning what, exactly?

Redstone

[Olney Blue]

3. I think Gore would have voted for Kerry-Feingold if he were in the Senate.

In fact, it might have been the Gore-Kerry or Gore-Feingold resolution.

[blm]

4. Kerry WROTE the withdrawal plan last March = this was an updated amendment

But I guess people forget that there are only a FEW senators capable of even crafting a detailed military withdrawal plan.

[karynnj]

9. Not from his comments

Gore-Feingold?? There are huge parts of this amendment (the diplomatic piece for one) that were from Kerry's April amenment. It was Kerry's work. This would be like me saying, "Had Kerry left the Senate, he could have produced the Gore's film" - after all he went to the summits too.

If Gore were in the Senate, he might have had an amendment - but it would reflect his thoughts.

[cal04]

5. Gore's comments on This Week

Gore, however, disagreed with Sen. John Kerry's, D-Mass., call to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

"I would pursue the twin objectives of trying to withdraw our forces as quickly as we possibly can, while at the same time minimizing the risk that we'll make the mess over there even worse and raise even higher the danger of civil war," Gore said.

Dismissing calls for any deadline, Gore added, "It's possible that setting a deadline could set in motion forces that would make it even worse. I think that we should analyze that very carefully. My guess is that a deadline is probably not the right approach; but again, you have to weigh that question in the context of how the political decisions are made between the Congress and the executive branch. Sometimes the Congress itself has blunt instruments and limited options to play a role in matters like this."

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Politics/story?id=2037158&page=3

[karynnj]

7. Sounds to me like he would have voted for the Levin amendment

and against Kerr/Feingold

[pstans]

12. Same here

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. He says (basically)

That we need to get out, but get out in a way that does not lead to even more violence.

He didn't get down to specifics (in the interviews I have heard) but he did say that the whole group that have orchestrated this mess need to be replaced. Start fresh with people who will bring new ideas to the table, instead of relying on the ones who screwed it up from the beginning.

[AlGore-08.com]

10. I would add that Gore always emphasizes we need to get the troops out ASAP

But... we have a moral obligation not to make the situation in Iraq even worse than it is now. (He usually starts by saying we have no good options left, so we have to choose the least bad option.)

IMNSHO, the most important thing about Gore and Iraq is that he opposed the idea from the beginning: he made his first major speech against the war a few weeks before Congress voted to authorize the invasion. In that speech he laid out why invading Iraq would be a terrible mistake, and he was right.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

11. thank you

you said it much better than I did. :)

[NastyDiaper]

8. He would not have voted to pull out. We would not be in..

"Here is the pattern that I see: The president's mishandling of and selective use of the best evidence available on the threat posed by Iraq is pretty much the same as the way he intentionally distorted the best available evidence on climate change and rejected the best available evidence on the threat posed to America's economy by his tax and budget proposals," Gore said.

Maybe Gore underestimated the economic power of the republican debt accrual machine. But on the war, while Lieberman and company were busy distancing themselves from the anti-iraq crowd, Gore was talking about * lies and misguided policy.

http://www.moveon.org/gore-speech.html

He has made some smart speeches about the media as well.