jameznyhc
10-02-2007, 10:39 PM
He sayin what ive been saying since day one...this was not BUSH's war ..
Obama Rebukes Clinton on Iraq War
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 2, 2007 updated 4:12 pm EDT
With his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination lagging in the polls, Senator Obama of Illinois is mounting a fresh attack on Senator Clinton's stance on the Iraq War and implying that her explanations about a key Senate vote on Iraq have been dishonest.
During a foreign policy speech in at DePaul University in Chicago today, Mr. Obama did not mention Mrs. Clinton by name. However, as he honed in on legislators who backed a 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, it became obvious that his criticism was directed at the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential contest, Mrs. Clinton.
"The American people weren't just failed by a president. They were failed by much of Washington, by media that too often reported spin instead do facts, by a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war, and most of all by the majority of a Congress, a coequal branch of government that voted to give the president the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day," Mr. Obama said.
"So let's be clear, without that vote there would be no war. Some now seek to rewrite history. They argue they weren't really voting for war, they were voting for inspectors or they were voting for diplomacy. But the Congress, the administration, the media, and the American People all understood what we were debating in the fall of 2002," Mr. Obama declared. "This was a vote about whether or not to go to war. That's the truth as we all understood it then and as we need to understand it now. We need to ask those who voted for the war, ‘How can you give the president a blank check and then act surprised when he cashes it?'"
Mrs. Clinton's campaign had no immediate response to the broadside from Mr. Obama. As the war has dragged on, she has insisted that her vote in October 2002 for a measure officially titled, "A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq," was intended to give President Bush added negotiating power with President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and to get U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country.
Mr. Obama's speech today came on the fifth anniversary of his appearance at an anti-war rally at DePaul, where he forcefully denounced the idea of war with Iraq and predicted, accurately, that sectarian strife would result. The Illinois senator, whose presidential campaign has been stymied by concerns over his lack of experience, insisted that his foresight proved more accurate than the judgment of others with longer résumés.
"There is a choice that has emerged in this campaign, one that the American people need to understand. They should ask themselves, ‘Who got the single most important foreign policy decision since the Cold War right, and who got it wrong?'" he said.
In his 20-minute foreign policy address, Mr. Obama also urged the abolition of all nuclear weapons. He said setting a clear policy in that direction would make it harder for rogue nations to claim a need for their own nuclear programs. "It's time to stop giving countries like Iran and North Korea an excuse. It's time for America to lead," he said.
http://www.nysun.com/article/63816
Obama Rebukes Clinton on Iraq War
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 2, 2007 updated 4:12 pm EDT
With his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination lagging in the polls, Senator Obama of Illinois is mounting a fresh attack on Senator Clinton's stance on the Iraq War and implying that her explanations about a key Senate vote on Iraq have been dishonest.
During a foreign policy speech in at DePaul University in Chicago today, Mr. Obama did not mention Mrs. Clinton by name. However, as he honed in on legislators who backed a 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, it became obvious that his criticism was directed at the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential contest, Mrs. Clinton.
"The American people weren't just failed by a president. They were failed by much of Washington, by media that too often reported spin instead do facts, by a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war, and most of all by the majority of a Congress, a coequal branch of government that voted to give the president the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day," Mr. Obama said.
"So let's be clear, without that vote there would be no war. Some now seek to rewrite history. They argue they weren't really voting for war, they were voting for inspectors or they were voting for diplomacy. But the Congress, the administration, the media, and the American People all understood what we were debating in the fall of 2002," Mr. Obama declared. "This was a vote about whether or not to go to war. That's the truth as we all understood it then and as we need to understand it now. We need to ask those who voted for the war, ‘How can you give the president a blank check and then act surprised when he cashes it?'"
Mrs. Clinton's campaign had no immediate response to the broadside from Mr. Obama. As the war has dragged on, she has insisted that her vote in October 2002 for a measure officially titled, "A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq," was intended to give President Bush added negotiating power with President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and to get U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country.
Mr. Obama's speech today came on the fifth anniversary of his appearance at an anti-war rally at DePaul, where he forcefully denounced the idea of war with Iraq and predicted, accurately, that sectarian strife would result. The Illinois senator, whose presidential campaign has been stymied by concerns over his lack of experience, insisted that his foresight proved more accurate than the judgment of others with longer résumés.
"There is a choice that has emerged in this campaign, one that the American people need to understand. They should ask themselves, ‘Who got the single most important foreign policy decision since the Cold War right, and who got it wrong?'" he said.
In his 20-minute foreign policy address, Mr. Obama also urged the abolition of all nuclear weapons. He said setting a clear policy in that direction would make it harder for rogue nations to claim a need for their own nuclear programs. "It's time to stop giving countries like Iran and North Korea an excuse. It's time for America to lead," he said.
http://www.nysun.com/article/63816