Hillary: National Security Is My New Top Priority
Saturday May 18, 2002; 12:09 a.m. EDT
newsmax.com
Casting aside her usual agenda of health care issues and education concerns, presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Friday night that her new number one priority is national security.
Just a day after she called for an investigation into President Bush's prior knowledge of the 9-11 attacks, Mrs. Clinton told a Dix Hills, New York audience, "I see three very large challenges. First - national security."
"Make no mistake about it," she explained. "Our adversaries are determined, they're ruthless and they are a continuing threat to us."
Adopting a stern, Commander-in-Chief-like tone, Clinton continued, "We have made an extraordinary success of the initial operations in Afghanistan. And I'm extremely proud of our men and women in uniform."
Then, playing to the homestate crowd, Clinton noted the Americans on the ground are Special Forces and 10th Mountain Division soldiers "from right here in New York."
Oblivious to long-standing complaints that her husband's administration decimated the military and traded national security secrets for campaign cash, Clinton continued to harp on the security theme.
"The national security challenge is one that is global in scope and encompasses not just the current battlefield in Afghanistan but serious threats throughout the world," she warned. "It is a different kind of war than any ever fought before."
Saying she was drawing on her encounters with military personnel who served in her husband's administration, the New York Senator noted, "This is a new kind of military mission. And we have to stay committed, we have to have patience and we have to be aware of the extraordinary dangers that they confront."
At one point during the address to the Half Hollow Hills High School crowd, Clinton seemed to be borrowing a page from President Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech:
"Our challenge is much more pervasive than it would be if we were just facing one enemy in one place. (But there's) the Middle East, Iraq, North Korea, Iran. There's a relatively long list that we believe are linked to the al Qaeda network - in the Philippines, in Indonesia and in Yemen and other places. That makes it very clear that this is a global network."
Clinton said homeland security was the second of the three challenges that were now a top priority.
Reminding the audience that Americans haven't had to worry about domestic attacks since the war of 1812, Clinton warned that things have changed.
"We have to worry about our nuclear plants, our utilities, our chemical plants. We have to worry about our ports, our railroads, our tunnels, our bridges, our northern border with Canada," she explained.
"I've been working very hard on this since 9-11," Clinton told the crowd, before declaring that the third big challenge America faces is everything else that was important on Sept. 10.
When her speech was over she answered only questions that were submitted in writing and prescreened, then she autographed programs from well-wishers.
When NewsMax.com approached with a question about her call for a 9-11 probe into the Bush White House, she ended the signing session, waved politely and retreated to a private reception.
Learn how the Clintons undermined U.S. national security from former White House insider Gary Aldrich, in his exclusive "Off the Record" newsmaxstore.com interview with NewsMax.com. |
