Clinton's Iraq Vote - Five Years Later

The fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war provides an appropriate moment to revisit Hillary Clinton's argument in favor of authorizing Bush's use of force, and to contrast it with the case made at the time by Bush's opponents.

In the last few years, Clinton has defended her vote by arguing that "if I knew then what I know now, I would never have given President Bush the authority" to attack Iraq. But a majority of Democrats in the House knew enough "then" to vote against the resolution - as did 21 out of 50 Democratic senators.

In Clinton's Senate speech, still posted on her senate website, she began by accepting Bush's premise that "if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." The question, she said, was whether war was the appropriate means of stopping those developments.

In supporting Bush, Clinton claimed to be taking a middle path between two extremes - on the one hand, those who believed we should go to war only if the UN Security Council approved it, which she considered absurd, and on the other, those who favored "attacking Saddam Hussein now." But not even Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld favored an immediate attack at the point the Senate debate occurred -- October 2002 - so she was rejecting an argument no one was making.

Probably the biggest concession she made to Bush was accepting his argument that war was a legitimate response to the attacks on 9-11, which had occurred just one year earlier. Although she did not explicitly agree with Bush's statements linking al Qaeda to Iraq, she did say her vote was justified by "last year's terrible attacks," and that "in balancing the risks of action versus inaction, I think New Yorkers who have gone through the fires of hell may be more attuned to the risk of not acting. I know that I am."

Other Senators rejected precisely those arguments. Russ Feingold voted against the authorization to use force in part because of what he called "the President's singularly unpersuasive attempt . . . to interweave 9-11 and Iraq." He criticized the "shifting justifications for an invasion," noting "the spectacle of the President and senior Administration officials citing a purported connection to al Qaeda one day, weapons of mass destruction the next day, Saddam Hussein's treatment of his own people on another day."

Ted Kennedy raised a key issue Clinton never considered: going to war against Iraq, he said, "will jeopardize the war against terrorism" - against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. "One year into the battle against Al Qaeda, the administration is shifting the focus, the resources and the energy to Iraq. The change in priority is coming before we have eliminated the threat from Al Qaeda."

While Clinton accepted Bush's claims regarding Saddam's possession weapons of mass destruction, others rejected them. Jim Jeffords, Republican of Vermont said, "There is much speculation about his weapons of mass destruction, but no evidence that he has developed nuclear capability and less that he could deliver it."

Robert Byrd opposed the resolution on other grounds, arguing that "The newly bellicose mood that permeates this White House . . . is clearly motivated by campaign politics. Republicans are already running attack ads against Democrats on Iraq." The criticism of Clinton was implicit but obvious.

In the House, Nancy Pelosi proved to be prescient about the course of the war: "There is no political solution on the ground in Iraq," she declared. "So when we go in, the occupation which is now being called liberation could be interminable. And so could the amount of money, unlimited, that it will cost -- 100, 200 billion dollars." (Of course the war is now costing more than ten times that.)

As for the dangers arising from a long occupation, that problem was foreseen by none other than Henry Kissinger. He testified at a Senate committee hearing before the war vote that he was "viscerally opposed to a prolonged occupation of a Muslim country at the heart of the Muslim world by Western nations who proclaim the right to re-educate that country." In Clinton's speech, she never considered that argument.

Comments (18)

1. One would think that a Senator from New York, whose constituents were preparing to sue the Saudi sponsors of 9/11 - Saudi 'Islamic charities', Saudi business entities, and prominent Saudis, including members of the royal family - would not have been swayed by the preposterous allegations that Iraq was somehow involved.

   On the other hand, a politician who has no principles other than what the latest polls favor is one who has no need of Intelligence Estimates: what the majority believes is more important than the truth.

   Posted by samcrossett at 03/17/2008 @ 11:37am

2. Today marks the fifth anniverary of your constant reminders that this is the 5th anniversary of the start of the war. These reminders are about as necessary as a carbon emitting state electric sign warning drivers of icy conditions during a sleet storm.

   Posted by CHIP THORNTON at 03/17/2008 @ 11:40am

3. A vote for Billary now is a vote for more of the same after Jan.20, 2009.

   Posted by sloper at 03/17/2008 @ 12:05pm

4. No doubt FRANKEULER will show up to inform us that "she didn't REALLY vote for war but how Bush fooled her....uh...I mean, how Bush lied to her and she believed him....uh...I mean....how she was perseuded by the intell to support the authorization IF Bush went back to the UN for a second resolutions, but she would have opposed it then, if she knew now that he wasn't going to do that, which she didn't then, but does now (that the war's gotten un-popular)....and she regrets her vote, but doesn't apologize for it....and she always opposed the war ("always" defined as after 2006)...."

   or male bovine feces to that effect, anyway.

   Posted by Mask at 03/17/2008 @ 12:07pm

5. No matter how many times the Nation writes on Iraq or Afghanistan, the bottom line is this..."CONGRESS AUTHORIZED THE WAR". The House and Senate intelligence committies were give the same info as the WH. So, regardless to which party controlled which chamber(s), there were enough representatives to halt the process. Why the process wasn't thoroughly vetted is anybody's guess. And, I seriously doubt fear of another attack played a major role in their decision-making.

   From where I sit, no sitting US President can take power away from Congress, it must given willingly.

   Posted by ACook at 03/17/2008 @ 1:22pm

6. Posted by CHIP THORNTON 03/17/2008 @ 11:40am

   The Nation staffs does this because their favorite progressive liberals aren't listening to them. It's kinda like a child throwing a temper tandum and mom's only response is to simply ignore the kid.

   Posted by ACook at 03/17/2008 @ 1:25pm

7. From where I sit, no sitting US President can take power away from Congress, it must given willingly.Posted by ACOOK 03/17/2008 @ 1:22pm

   Hundreds of Bush signing statements, most secret, belie this.

   The US Congress has yet to declare war on Iraq, trillions not withstanding.

   Posted by sloper at 03/17/2008 @ 1:53pm

8. This is interesting...

   "Why the process wasn't thoroughly vetted is anybody's guess. And, I seriously doubt fear of another attack played a major role in their decision-making."----Posted by ACOOK 03/17/2008 @ 1:22pm

   So first....you think "the process" SHOULD have been more thoroughly vetted, possibly STOPPING it?

   and second, WHAT WAS the major role in their decision making?

   Posted by Mask at 03/17/2008 @ 2:08pm

9. I'm one of those odd ducks who agreed with Afghanistan but virulently opposed attacking Iraq. I didn't see the link between 9/11 and Saddam and more importantly knew that any outside force won't be able to hold Iraq since, well, no outside force has (and even the Islamic ones had a rough time). It was beyond a stupid idea and we are reaping what we've sown. And Clinton needs to take responsibility for being part of that decision making process.

   Which is why I read a really rich item today about how Her Highness is arguing that she's the BEST one to stop the war now. Aside from the massive giggles that gave me, why in the WORLD would she remind folks of the biggest reaon to oppose her presidency? Whichever advisor told her to bring that up should be berated (I'm tired of them getting canned so I don't advocate that any more.) for just sheer stupidity. Iraq is NOT an issue she can win on.

   Posted by yutsano at 03/17/2008 @ 2:21pm

10. I'm one of those odd ducks who agreed with Afghanistan but virulently opposed attacking Iraq.

    Don't think those ducks are that odd...but then I'm one too.

    Posted by brunowe at 03/17/2008 @ 4:13pm

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12. RE: Clinton's Iraq Vote - Five Years Later

    You just keep wondering what this dump ass extremist propaganda machine Nation is about? Instead of that cheating Rove - Cheney crowd, they keep blaming everything on Hillary. Ugly ugly nation. Dangerously ugly. Where's your darling ObaMacaca at that time? Buzying himself with muslim robe?

    Posted by HelenDAO at 03/17/2008 @ 11:52pm

13. A lot of commentary has been floated unto the media waves regarding Hillary's chances of getting back in the White House.My moment of revelation came in mid-2007 when I received my issue of Fortune magazine and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw her picture on the cover and the proclamation " Hillary ,the business sector is O.K. with her".Over time I came across enough bits of information indicating that indeed ,the big guns (pharma and others) were betting heavily on her. I knew then that us in the middle class and below would get very little change with her presidency.

    Posted by ordinaire at 03/18/2008 @ 12:49am

14. Let up on the "Her Highness" and "Billary" crapola. Get's us nowhere we want to be. I haven't seen anyone mentioning how John Edwards handled his war vote. "A mistake." "I was Wrong." "Now do this and this-- NOW," not at some unspecified date. We really missed the train for significant change when we allowed the media to ignore John Edwards out of the race.

    Posted by garyd at 03/18/2008 @ 11:13am

15. Hillary's vote on the Iraq war is the only reason I'd vote for her.

    Posted by abell12ct at 03/18/2008 @ 1:11pm

16. Did you notice the almost classic example of triangulation at its worst?

    "In supporting Bush, Clinton claimed to be taking a middle path between two extremes - on the one hand, those who believed we should go to war only if the UN Security Council approved it, which she considered absurd, and on the other, those who favored 'attacking Saddam Hussein now.' But not even Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld favored an immediate attack at the point the Senate debate occurred -- October 2002 - so she was rejecting an argument no one was making."

    This is how Hillary Clinton, like her husband before her, manages to look like a leftist while allowing the center of debate to move to the right. When necessary, invent an illusory right-wing position that nobody occupies and then maneuver "to the left" of it so as always to appear to be in the middle.

    HRC's admittedly time-tested and lobbyist-approved electoral strategy is a recipe for poor statesmanship. We don't need another Democrat who appears to be farther to the left than she or he is. We need a Democrat who IS farther to the left than she or he APPEARS to be.

    (Could this be Barack Obama?)

    Only this kind of leadership can pull us out of the quagmire that we're in because so many politicians of both parties have pandered to popular ignorance rather than stood up against it.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 03/19/2008 @ 07:57am

17. The main problem with this analysis is it simplifies the issue too much. The war vote really unfolded because of two separate and distinct White House cons against a backdrop of an upcoming election and widespread White House fearmongering to fool the public into supporting a war by linking Saddam to 9/11 and the threat of mushroom clouds. The first con which almost every congress member accepted was that Saddam had WMDs and CIA intel supported this. So even if certain congress persons didn't believe some of Bush's fearmongering, nor wanted to vote for that War Res, most believed the CIA intel. The second con that was applied was convincing enough fence-sitters that Bush would only go to war as a last resort. That he needed broad bipartisan support to make his case before the UN to get the weapons inspectors back in and put enough pressure on Saddam to allow this. Obviously some fell for this second con believing that if they voted for this War Res, the weapons inspectors would go back in, find the WMDs and disarm them all and war would be prevented. The problem is which ones fell into this group and which ones would have voted for the War Res anyway because of the upcoming election and their own fears of being viewed as weak in defending the country if they didn't vote for it? What we do know is that every person in Congress with Presidential aspirations except for Kucinich voted for that War Res: Kerry, Biden, Dodd, Gephardt, Clinton, Edwards, and Lieberman. What we also know is that some voting for the War Res had to be risking that if Bush took us to war it would go well and they didn't want to make the same mistake as the Dems who voted against the First Gulf War.

    What we also know is that Sen. Chafee said he spoke to a Dem leader about why the Dems were lining up to support Bush on this issue and was told this: They thought the war would go well and gas would be cheap. We also know that Sen. Chafee visited the CIA to examine what Intel they had and came away realizing the case for WMDs was poor at best. But who else did he share this information with and what did they do with it?

    What we also know is that while Carl Levin believed Saddam had WMDs he didn't trust Bush enough to send him back to the UN without more constraints on his ability to start a war. This is why he proposed his own amendment which was defeated. Clinton and I believe all of the other Senate Dems with Presidential aspirations voted against the Levin amendment too.

    We can blame those who voted against the Levin Amendment and for the War Res for carelessness and a total lack of oversight, naivete in trusting Bush over members of their own party and own committees, and maybe putting their own political ambitions over what was best for the country. I am not sure what's worse: Admitting Bush bamboozled you into authorizing the war or voting for it based on your own political calculations. According to Chafee, there was no good reason why Bush was in any position to con the Dems at this time.

    RJ Crane, topplebush.com

    Posted by rjcrane42 at 03/19/2008 @ 09:16am

18. There is very little mystery about the rationale for Hillary's vote on Iraq. Many Democrats at the time, thinking about the 2002 midterm elections and potential presidential runs, followed the guidance of Mark Penn. In a memo to the Democratic Leadership Council in December 2001, Penn wrote, " By supporting the president's efforts in the war against terrorism, the Democrats have been able to focus on issues like strengthening the economy." He goes on to advise that, "Any Democratic alternative to President Bush needs to prove not only that he supports the president's war on terrorism, but that he is also capable of managing national security issues. Given the president's unique responsibility for conducting foreign policy and providing for national security, the weakness of Democratic credentials represents a threshold challenge for the next Democratic presidential nominee in 2004."

    Does anyone think that Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, was not advising her on how to best position herself for a 2008 presidential run. This was politics at its most cynical and calculating - voting on the basis of political expediency and self-interest, rather than common interest. Hillary voted to strengthen her commander-in-chief credentials and to redirect the national debate to issues that showcased her strengths like health care and education. We will never get a good answer on her Iraq vote because the truth is too damning to even consider.

    Posted by M. L. at 03/19/2008 @ 10:29am