What's Missing From Hillary's Iraq Apology

[G_j]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/whats-missing-from-hillary-clintons-iraq-war-apology/372427/

What's Missing From Hillary's Iraq Apology
Did Clinton make an informed decision to authorize war?

PETER BEINART
JUN 9, 2014 GLOBAL

Among the biggest news from Hillary Clinton’s largely newsless new book is her blunt apology for voting to authorize war in Iraq. “I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had,” she writes “And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong.”

This represents a change. In 2008, her advisors feared that if she called her Iraq vote a mistake, Republicans would savage her for flip-flopping, as they had done to John Kerry four years earlier. So even after John Edwards apologized for his Iraq vote, she refused to. In their book, Her Way, Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. quote Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, as insisting that, “It’s important for all Democrats to keep the word ‘mistake’ firmly on the Republicans.”

But the apology itself is less interesting than Clinton’s claim about why she voted to authorize war in the first place. “I had acted in good faith,” she writes. That’s likely true. During her race against Barack Obama, Clinton suffered mightily from the perception that she only supported the war because she feared looking weak on national security. As a character playing her on Saturday Night Live quipped in 2007, “I think most Democrats know me. They understand that my support for the war was always insincere.”

---

Although many liberals assumed that in her heart Clinton was as dovish as them—and thus must have been insincere in her vote to authorize war—the evidence suggests that her experience during her husband’s presidency made her more hawkish. For better or worse, her behavior as secretary of state—where she championed the Afghan surge, aid to Syria’s rebels, and the war in Libya—suggests that she still is.

But if Clinton’s claim that “I had acted in good faith” passes muster, her assertion that she “made the best decision I could with the information I had” does not. Prior to Clinton’s October 10, 2002 speech from the Senate floor explaining her Iraq vote, the Bush administration sent over two documents to the Senate for review. The first was a 92-page, classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The second was a five-page, unclassified version.

...more...

[merrily]

1. I don't think it's an accident that every Senator with an eye on the Oval Office voted for the IWR.

I don't consider that "good faith." Sorry.

I don't consider not reading the NIE good faith. Sorry.

I don't consider good faith writing a book before you run for President saying that, with every letter you, as a Senator, wrote to a "Gold Star" family, you realized more and more what a "mistake" you had made--yet you remained silent until you wrote the book. Sorry.

BTW, what apology? Is "I made a mistake" an apology?

Not that "I'm sorry about authorizing a war I never should have authorized" does much good anyway, but I don't remember an apology. I'm sorry.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. What really gets me is

in 1998, Hillary complained publicly about a "vast right-wing conspiracy".
Then, in 2000, she saw that "vast right-wing conspiracy" steal an election from her husband's vice president.
Then, in 2002, she took the floor in the Senate to unabashedly shill for a war being pushed by that "vast right-wing conspiracy".

[merrily]

21. When she accused the right wing conspiracy, she was wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy

[Octafish]

31. That gets me, too.

And why should Democrats, of all people, have to make Republicans happy? The same Republicans who lied America into an illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous war in Iraq in 1991 and 2002?

The Democrats should have been demanding proof both times. Instead, they caved to the VRWC -- the BFEE.

[Maedhros]

2. Sincerity?[n/t]

[dflprincess]

13. That's what I was going to say! nt

[msongs]

3. is bernie gonna apologize for his votes to approve war appropriations? nt

[BillZBubb]

5. What a bullshit question. Are you really that obtuse?

[jillan]

8. Right because when our troops are on the ground in that hell hole we should cut off funding

for them...

[Joe the Revelator]

4. It should honestly disqualify her from the Presidency.

The most idiotic, destructive vote in most of our life times.

[Martin Eden]

9. I have never, and will never, support a candidate in a Dem primary who voted for the IWR

It was obvious by October 2002 the Bush White House Iraq group was conducting a false marketing campaign to sell the war.

[G_j]

10. something like 11 million people

protested against it. We knew it was wrong.

[Martin Eden]

14. Most of those protests came after the IWR vote, but here at DU we knew by then it was a pack of lies

Furthermore, if you can somehow bring yourself to believe that Hillary Clinton honestly couldn't tell it was a pack of lies by October 2002 and truly believed Bush would act "in good faith," where was she in February & March 2003 when it was obvious Bush was going to invade despite admittance of UN inspectors to every site they requested in Iraq?

Where were Hillary Clinton and other Democratic leaders like John Kerry on the eve of war when the UN inspectors were beginning to conclude the vast infrastructure necessary for a nuclear weapons program did not exist in Iraq and they were asking for more time to complete their work?

The LIES were even more obvious by then, and the only "grave and gathering threat" was the official rationale for this war would vanish along with the "mushroom clouds" we were told to fear.

[G_j]

16. yes, we here at DU all knew it

I don't remember anyone advocating for either the vote or the invasion.

Thank you for recounting the events. Our protests were after the vote, and before/after the invasion. I also recall that the Democrats who enabled Bush were given very little love here.
What we are talking about is a crime against the peace. Unless my memory fails me, we all knew it. DU was a pretty powerful place back then for truth telling.

[Martin Eden]

17. I have not forgotten. The issue is still alive for me 14 years later.

I live in Chicagoland and joined the February protest on the north side, then travelled to DC for the big protest on March 15, 4 days before the invasion.

Twice in my life I was ashamed of my country to the point of tears -- when we invaded of Iraq in March 2003, and when enough people voted for Bush for him to take the White House again in 2004.

[G_j]

18. I forget who said

they were about to "open the gates of hell" was unfortunately correct. It was the most terrible feeling to know that is exactly what they were doing. And now of course today see the results.
And people shrug off their involvement as a mistake.

[Martin Eden]

19. The Democratic Party was complicit

Their complicity would be less unforgiveable if they had learned some crucially important lessons about military adventurism and promoting regime changes in the Middle East, but Hillary Clinton has shown no sign of changing her hawkish stripes.

[G_j]

25. and sadly

they refused to acknowledge any lessons from Vietnam. So much hurt.

[bvar22]

32. ...as evidenced by her complicity in "Regime Change" in Libya years later while SOS.

Has she "apologized" for the huge disaster resulting in another Failed State run by ISIS yet?
Before Hillary, Libya was the most advanced country in North Africa.
Hillary's "friends" have now instituted Sharia Law.

[Martin Eden]

33. It's either a case of incompetence and very poor judgment ...

... or these results were, to a certain extent, intended.

[BillZBubb]

6. She was going to vote YES no matter what. She chose willful ignorance as a cover.

Voting no would have been dangerous to her career goals. Her goals came first as always.

She's lying of course, but then everyone with an IQ greater than a cucumber knows that.

[yourout]

7. A real apology. Not the "sorry it bit me in the ass" one we all got.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Kinda like a drunk saying he made a mistake when he ran over your kid and saying

there were others at the bar as drunk as he was.

[G_j]

12. perfectly stated..

my memory still works. WE knew that it was a sham.

[Carolina]

15. What was unfathomable to me

Last edited Fri Mar 11, 2016, 03:24 AM - Edit history (1)

was how anyone with any sense could vote for IWR.

Reason 1: Iraq did not attack the US; fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis while the other four were from the UAE, Egypt, Yemen. They learned to fly here in the States (Florida, Arizona). Bin Laden was also Saudi!

Reason 2: Iraq had been under horrific UN sanctions since the first Bush war on Iraq in 1991; so how could it have morphed into an imminent threat to the US in 2002 when IWR was being peddled

Reason 3: W's administration introduced IWR and demanded a vote on it right before the 2002 midterm elections. Wise men questioned the timing and the rush but not those who voted aye... they had their eyes on being POTUS and cast calculating votes that reeked of political and moral cowardice.

Reason 4: Anyone who was paying attention knew about PNAC and therefore knew how the Bush cabal and Carlyle group had their eyes on carving up Iraq's oil fields. Clinton sure knew because the signers of PNAC policy papers wrote him seeking pre-emptive action while he was POTUS. And Kerry should have questioned pre-emptive war since he served in and then questioned Vietnam. He also should have questioned anything pushed by the Bushes because he had been part of the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra... about which the elder Bush as VP and former CIA chief claimed the big lie of having been "out of the loop."

Reason 5: the Bush cabal STOLE the White House in 2000 because they had their PNAC plans. Then, they ignored all the warnings/chatter leading up to 9/11. They allege they were blindsided and could not have foreseen such an attack. But that flies in the face of the fact that the airspace had to be closed around the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy in July 2001 precisely because of terrorists' threats to fly planes into buildings! So therefore, why would any sentient 'leader' of the opposition party trust or "have good faith" in ANYTHING proposed by W

Reason 6: Anyone who knew history, knew that Reagan sold WMDs to Saddam/Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war (recall photo of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand). So when Cheney took to the airwaves in 2002 talking about WMDs and said he knew where they were and how they'd been used against the Kurds, he was telling the truth... about 1988. He was using his dirty past to foment a new war for oil

Reason 7: the Bush cabal withdrew the weapons inspectors because they were not finding anything. Scott Ritter (who was smeared) and his fellow inspectors' findings would not/did not conform to the desired Bush narrative, so Colin Bowel sold his soul and did his 'tube' presentation to the UN

Reason 8: Citing the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, Robert Byrd gave an eloquent and passionate speech about lies that lead to war, about the waste of war, about the unintended consequences of war... and he challenged the rush to war. Bob Graham and Ted Kennedy spoke as well. Why didn't their colleagues listen to them rather than Bush or Cheney? No, they gave Bush bipartisan cover and so they have blood on their hands, too

Clearly the rationale for IWR was all a LIE, and if a little old Jane Q Citizen like me could see all this, why not Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards and Kerry?! They all voted aye, they all ran for POTUS and they all lost. I held my nose and voted for Kerry-Edwards in 2004 because they were better than Bush, but it was unnerving to watch and listen to Kerry's meandering justifications when he was called out on his aye vote.

So in 2008, there was no way I was going to support HRC precisely because of her IWR vote. Votes have consequences and there is no apology large enough to cover a cowardly, finger-in-the-wind vote that has caused so much death, debt, destruction and destabilization!

[ljm2002]

22. A most excellent post!

Thank you for spelling it out so thoroughly. Your statements all ring true, and are how I remember it all as well.

I especially thank you for reminding everyone about the ridiculous position of the GWB administration that "no one could have foreseen terrorists flying planes into buildings" as you point out in Reason 5 (the first one -- you might want to edit your post since you have two Reason 5's ). There had already been explicit threats of just such tactics and the President and those around him had to know that since he had attended the G8 summit.

[Gregorian]

23. Wow. That's a brief history of all the years I've been on the forum.

Pretty damning. She can't hide.

[G_j]

24. just going through all that again

is like getting punched in the stomach once again. It was a criminal enterprise. As in, International War Crimes. There are no "excuses". And thank you for including 9-11.

[peacebird]

26. Scott Ritter offered to meet with Hillary before the vote, she couldn't be bothered

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-ritter/hillary-clinton-iraq-war-vote_b_9350340.html

The meeting -- or lack thereof -- that had the biggest impact on me was the one I didn't have with Hillary Clinton. Hillary was, at that time, one of two Senators from the State of New York, where I was a resident. She was my Senator, and as a constituent who possessed unmatched qualifications on the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I felt I had a duty to brief her; and as her constituent, she had a responsibility to give me a hearing or, in the absence of such (recognizing Senators are very busy people), to assign a staff member, a la Chuck Hagel, to hear me out. I made several calls to Hillary's Senate office, trying to arrange a meeting at her convenience. Even after explaining to her staff that I was not only a former Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, but also a citizen of the State of New York who wanted to meet with his Senator, all I got was a promise to take my information down in the hope that "someone would get back to me." No one ever did.

[libtodeath]

27. Then why did she pursue the same policy in Libya?

Not with our soldiers but the same idea of toppling a stabilizing head of state that was not posing a threat to us.

[G_j]

28. good question! nt

[NCjack]

29. The blunt obvious truth would be refreshing. Something like: "I'm sorry that

a vote that served me so well in the near term is now very inconvenient. Mercifully, my daughter Chelsea was not an "economic draftee" of the military and sent to fight in Iraq." (As my own daughter was.)

[noamnety]

30. The apology I want:

Not "I made a mistake."

But "I made a decision that contributed to the wrongful death of a half a million people."

Every time I hear someone say "she will lie or say anything to get elected," in my had I amend that to "she will lie, say anything, or bomb anyone to get elected."

It pisses me off that the death of 500,000 people may prove to have been a successful strategy for her.