Clinton Claims Her Iraq Vote Was For Diplomacy, Not War

President Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in 2008 in large part due to his opposition to the Iraq War Resolution, which Clinton supported.

Since that time, Clinton has, in truly Clintonian fashion, obfuscated and triangulated her way around her vote, defending it at various times while more recently saying it was a “mistake.”

Setting aside the fact that her “mistake” directly contributed to the launch of a failed war that claimed the lives of over 5,000 Americans and 500,000 Iraqis, while upending the Middle East and creating the disastrous conditions that allowed ISIS to emerge, in the Democratic Town Hall on Wednesday she seemed to take a new tack by recasting her vote as an authorization for “diplomacy.”

In answer to a question about her Iraq vote, Clinton said that she was voting to authorize the U.N. weapons inspector at the time, Hans Blix, to conduct inspections to determine whether Iraq had rid itself of alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). She was NOT, however, authorizing President Bush to invade.

Here is  Clinton at the Town Hall:

The very explicit appeal that President Bush made before announcing the invasion that getting that [Iraq] vote would be a strong piece of leverage in order to finish the inspections…

But you know I gave them the vote, in large measure because I thought that would give us the time and we would find out, short of invasion. Turned out not to be. And I really regret that that’s the way President Bush proceeded.

That would not be something you would have to worry about with me. If I tell you we’re going to do diplomacy, we’re going to hang tough, we’re going to get answers, that’s exactly what we will do.

WOW! Color me shocked! Because, apart from the fact that Clinton voted against an amendment to the Iraq resolution that would have favored a U.N.- led effort and limited U.S. military action, and despite the fact that 126 of 209 Democratic Representatives voted against the resolution, and 21 out of 50 Democratic Senators also voted nay, there is the inexorable fact that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York voted in favor of the linguistically and etymologically deterministic “Authorization for Use of *Military* Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.”

I guess, however, that we’ll have to take Clinton at her word that she was supporting “diplomacy,” and perhaps missed the “military” part of the resolution.

OK then.

Liked it? Take a second to support Charles Tanzer on Patreon!