Coburn declines to elaborate on Iraq War statement
by: JIM MYERS and RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writers
2/21/2008 12:00 AM
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's comment that going to war in Iraq was "probably a mistake" represents a significant departure from where the Oklahoma Republican started out on the 5-year-old conflict.
Coburn's comment came at the beginning of remarks at a weekend town hall meeting in Muskogee.
"I will tell you personally that I think it was probably a mistake going to Iraq," said the freshman senator, who made it clear he did not believe the U.S. could withdraw but had to stay.
What was unclear was when exactly Coburn changed his position on the controversial war, what led to that change and why he chose to reveal it at a town hall meeting back in the state as opposed to in front of a wider audience.
Coburn's comment came less than a week after he returned from his second trip to Iraq since entering the Senate.
He declined to comment Wednesday.
Coburn, who previously served six years in the U.S. House, ran for the Senate in 2004.
During both the primary and the general election campaigns that year, he repeatedly expressed support for President Bush's decision to take the country to war in Iraq.
Coburn at one point in the campaign reportedly said the war in Iraq was "absolutely not" a mistake.
Vice President Dick Cheney, a vocal defender of the war, came to Tulsa to cam paign and raise money for Coburn.
During that visit, Cheney criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for flip-flopping on the war by voting in the Senate to go to war but voting against adequate funding for the troops.
Coburn at times has criticized the way the war was handled and funded.
Still, his comments at the town hall meeting may be the first time he has ever suggested the war was a mistake.
According to official and unofficial reports, Oklahoma has lost 60 military personnel to the war in Iraq, while nationally the death toll as of Wednesday stands at 3,965.
Coburn's latest comments on the war clearly surprised his fellow Oklahoma Republican senator, Jim Inhofe.
"No, no, he couldn't have said that," Inhofe said Wednesday when asked to comment.
A veteran member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has made a number of trips to Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion, Inhofe is a staunch defender of the war.
"I cannot believe he said that," Inhofe said, adding a few minutes later that he disagreed with Coburn.
Even though he brought up the issue of war at his recent town hall, Coburn added: "It doesn't do any good to dwell on it because we're there."
He said the risk of withdrawal is greater than the risk of remaining, and he praised the military personnel.
"I personally think we have to finish this," Coburn said. "People who are running for president saying 'Bring our people out' are wrong."
In 2005, Coburn reportedly predicted Iraq was about two years away from becoming a working democracy and went on to say Syria would follow.
Last weekend, Coburn said "we are on a glide path in the Muslim world" to creating a sustainable democracy and warned that withdrawing would "expose 570,000 people to genocide."
"How we got there is (the) past," he said.
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