Obama mocks McCain, Clinton on Iraq
by Mike Dorning
weblogs.chicagotribune.com
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Sen. Barack Obama mocked rivals Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Clinton as he delivered a speech here today highlighting his early opposition to the Iraq war on the fifth anniversary of the conflict’s start.
Speaking at a community college near Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne Division and the Army Special Operations Command, the Illinois Democrat honed in on McCain’s mix-up in the Middle East yesterday in which the Arizona senator said that Iran was providing support to Al Qaeda in Iraq, one of the Sunni insurgent groups there.
In fact, U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran is providing assistance to Shia militias, which are struggling against Sunni insurgent groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq.
“Just yesterday, we heard Senator McCain (R-Ariz.) confuse Sunni and Shia, Iran and al Qaeda,” Obama said. “Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no Al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America’s enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades.”
Likewise, Obama targeted McCain’s frequent promise that as president he would follow Osama bin Laden “to the gates of Hell,” arguing that the promise is meaningless given McCain’s focus on the conflict in Iraq rather than devoting greater military resources to Afghanistan along the Pakistani border where bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
“We have a security gap when candidates say they will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but refuse to follow him where he actually goes,” Obama said.
Without naming Clinton, he suggested that her decision in 2002 to vote in favor of authorizing the war in Iraq was governed more by polls than by hard evidence.
(Obama on the anniversary of war. Photo by Brad Coville/AFP/Getty Images)
“There were too many politicians in Washington who spent too little time reading the intelligence reports, and too much time reading public opinion,” Obama said.
Clinton (D-N.Y.) has acknowledged that she, like most members of Congress, did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq made available to Congress before the war vote. At the time, polls showed strong public support for war.
Noting that the war in Iraq now has lasted longer than either of the World Wars or the American Civil War, Obama argued that the Iraq War in addition to the lives lost and treasure spent has opened a “security gap” for the United States by weakening its strategic position.
“There is a security gap in this country – a gap between the rhetoric of those who claim to be tough on national security, and the reality of growing insecurity caused by their decisions,” Obama said.
“The war in Iraq has emboldened Iran, which poses the greatest challenge to American interests in the Middle East in a generation, continuing its nuclear program and threatening our ally, Israel,” he added. “Instead of the new Middle East we were promised, Hamas runs Gaza, Hizbollah flags fly from the rooftops in Sadr City, and Iran is handing out money left and right in southern Lebanon.”
But the crux of Obama’s case was the familiar argument he has made throughout the campaign that his judgment in opposing the war from the start leaves him best-suited to bring the U.S. intervention to an end and make a “clean break” with the Bush Administration’s foreign policies.
“Since before this war in Iraq began, I have made different judgments, I have a different vision, and I will offer a clean break from the failed policies and politics of the past,” Obama said.
“Ask yourself,” he added, contrasting his record with Clinton’s record, “Who do you trust to end a war – someone who opposed the war from the beginning, or someone who started opposing it when they started preparing a run for President?” |
