I will do my best to restrain myself, and apologies to all for not having read the entire thread...I just clicked on, with limited time!!!
I definitely loathe Senator Clinton, and for that reason I would just request a "second source" (preferrably AP or some liberal newswire) to confirm these remarks she made according to NewsMax (who I generally trust, but they loathe her as much as I do!)...this is likely already posted somewhere on this thread, so do me a favor and direct me there, since a "mainstream media" account or transcript would be worth screaming over, and I'm sure she actually said those things!!!
Then...I can "/ rant" and just have a word with the appropriate "elected officials"...
By RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Saturday, November 29th, 2003
WASHINGTON - Arriving in Baghdad hours after President Bush's star turn, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said yesterday the troops were happy to meet her, too. "It's a positive for the commander-in-chief to visit troops in the field," Clinton said, yet "the troops [also] seemed to appreciate seeing myself" and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) on their joint trip to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Clinton and Reed, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, quickly turned from faintly praising Bush for his surprise Thanksgiving drop-in at Baghdad's airport to ripping his handling of the Iraq war and the transition to democracy.
In a conference call from the region, Clinton, who voted in the Senate for the Iraq war resolution, charged that Bush failed to commit enough troops for the invasion and the increasingly bloody occupation effort.
"The Pentagon tried to make do with as few troops as possible, as light a footprint as they could get away with," Clinton said. "Now, we're playing catchup."
She added that the government's Iraq policy was mishandled by Bush administration officials who have been "obsessed with [deposed Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein for more than a decade."
"Unfortunately, I don't think they fully appreciated the conditions we would encounter," Clinton said.
Reed, who voted against the war resolution, renewed his call for more troops to be committed to Iraq and for more troops to be recruited for the war against terror groups in the future.
"There's no question in my mind we need a larger Army," said Reed, a West Point graduate and former paratrooper.
The two senators, who stayed in Kuwait last night but will visit U.S. troops in the Iraqi oil town of Kirkuk today, also questioned the Bush administration plan to hold elections for a new Iraqi government by June.
Clinton said the support of the majority Shiite community in Iraq was "still a big if. The obstacles and problems are much greater than the administration usually admits to."
The former First Lady said the morale of the troops she met from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division was high, but they were concerned about how their mission was perceived back home.
She said she told the troops "Americans are proud" of them, "but many question the administration's policies."