Clinton response to Biden's comments on her Iran vote...a misunderstanding of what was voted on

[Debi]

http://iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1319

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Iowa Independent: Senator, a couple of days ago I covered your colleague Sen. Joe Biden, who was in a smaller community outside of here (Lohrville). (Former) Sen. (John) Edwards has obviously been campaigning around here, too. And both of those gentlemen have raised concerns that they have with your vote in identifying some of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as terrorists.

Biden spent a good deal of time on it and suggested that you hadn't learned your lesson from the first vote on Iraq and that you were complicit in setting the stage to give President Bush carte blanche to start another war.

It's something we printed. Out of fairness to you, do you want to comment on that and defend yourself?

Clinton: I have the highest regard for him (Biden). He's a good friend and colleague, but I think that's a misunderstanding of what we voted on.

We had 76 votes, including people like (Sen.) Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and (Sen.) Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who did not vote in 2002 to give the president authority but who believe that this is a necessary action to force the Bush administration to actually engage in diplomacy.

There is nothing in that resolution that in any way provides authority , and I think if you read it, that's clear.

Obviously, people don't trust the Bush administration. I don't trust the Bush administration. But the idea behind it was to state the obvious, that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard supports terrorism like Hezbollah. They have supplied weapons and advisers to people fighting and killing Americans in Iraq, and we have very few diplomatic options available to us other than sanctions, which we've got to figure out how to get more countries to agree with us on.

It's ironic because many of the people who are criticizing this vote have previously signed on to either identical legislation that calls them a terrorist organization or said something along the same line.

I think what we need to do is take a deep breath and say, "Look, if your goal is to get the administration to engage in diplomacy with Iran," which is my goal, "then it makes sense to give them some leverage."

Giving them the leverage of being able to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, I think, makes sense in a diplomatic context.

If I were in the White House right now, I would be having negotiations with Iran. I wouldn't ask them to give up their nuclear ambitions before they came to the negotiating table, because that's what the Bush administration has done. That means there will never be any negotiations.

There is in the resolution, which you remember is a non-binding resolution passed by one House, there is language from (Defense) Secretary (Robert) Gates saying that this will help us move to diplomacy.

I understand why people don't trust George Bush but distrust him ... don't confuse what we voted on with the premise of distrusting George Bush and Dick Cheney.

I sent out a mailing to a lot people with a letter explaining what I voted for, with a long quote from Dick Durbin who basically said, "Would I have ever voted to give George Bush any kind of leeway for going to war? Of course not, that's not what this is about."

So I just think we ought to just stick to the facts. I can understand some of the rhetorical attacks and the deep-seated distrust we have of Bush, but let's not confuse one with the other.

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Edited to attach correct link x(