HRC's Iraq Policy 01/22/07 - McCain would tear her to shreds

[denem]

CRYSTAL PATTERSON: Our next question is from Carolyn in New York. Carolyn asks, where do you stand on the Iraq war? Knowing what you know today, do you regret your vote of endorsement to go into Iraq in the first place? I would love to support you, but these issues are very important to me and many others.

SENATOR CLINTON: Well, they're very important to me as well. There's nothing more important, and you know, ever since I became a Senator from New York, your state and mine, I have worried about 9/11 and terrorism and Afghanistan and Iraq. I have said many times that, if we had known then, when the president came to the Congress to ask for authority to pursue what he said would be an effort to contain Saddam Hussein and put inspectors in to make sure that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction, if we had known everything that we now know, the president would never have asked for such authority, and the Congress would never have voted to give it to him. And I certainly would not have voted to do so.

But all these years later, we are faced with a very dangerous situation, and what I've tried to focus on, starting, you know, shortly after the invasion, when I began pointing out the problem saw and raising questions about the policy that was being pursued from my position on the armed Armed Services Committee, we have to make better decisions now than this President was made in the past. That's why I went again, my third trip to Afghanistan and Iraq last weekend, and I tried to make my own assessment. And when I returned, I reaffirmed my opposition to the President's strategy of escalation, putting March American troops into Baghdad, into Iraq.

Instead, I think we should cap the number of troops, and we should begin to put real conditions on the Iraqi government. I've said, look, I don't want to cut money for American troops. I've been to too many events and places like our military hospital in Germany, where I stopped on the way back, where I met with our wounded servicemen and women. I don't want to do anything that in any way undercuts their ability to protect themselves and to do what they need to do in the combat arenas where they are being placed.

But I do think we should threaten to cut the funding for the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police force and the security for the Iraqi leaders, which we pay for, unless they make some of the decisions that we've been expecting them to make for a number of years. I don't understand why this president has given them such a blank check, and I think we need to make clear there is no open-ended commitment.

We need a phased redeployment of our troops. We need to try to bring them home as safely and as soon as it is possible. But let me add that America does have some remaining very vital security interests. The Al Qaeda in Iraq, they weren't there before, they are there now. They pose a threat not only to our troops in Iraq but to our friends in the region and even to us here at home. We have to make sure we do everything we can to try to prevent them from using their horrendous terrorist tactics against Americans and against other innocent people.

We also need to try to prevent Iran from expanding its influence in Iraq and in the region. And prevent its continuing effort to obtain a nuclear weapon which would be so dangerous not only to the region but also to Israel and our country and really to the stability of the world. So, yes, I would certainly, you know, wish that we didn't have the situation we face now, but I'm going to continue to do what I can to try to be as responsible as possible to get our troops home but also to deal with the dangers that have been unleashed there.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=1262

Yes of course, McCain would point to the "success" of the surge, but the idea of defunding the Iraqi army, police and even government ecurity as a way of progressing America's interests in Iraq is mind blowing. How exactly does that fit in with:

"I'm going to continue to do what I can to try to be as responsible as possible to get our troops home but also to deal with the dangers that have been unleashed there." Threaten to cut the Iraqi army, police and government security?