Posted on 02/11/2007 4:06:33 PM PST by NormsRevenge
AMES, United States (AFP) - Senator Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) piled pressure on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, questioning how she would live up to her vow to end the war in Iraq, a day after launching his White House bid.
"I am not clear on how she would proceed at this point to wind down the war in a specific way," Obama, 45, told reporters when asked to critique Clinton's plans for ending the bloody US engagement during a campaign stop in Iowa.
"I know she has stated that she thinks the war should end by the start of the (next) president's first term .... beyond that though, how she wants to accomplish that I am not clear, I would let her address those issues," Obama said.
Obama, on a quest to become the first African-American US president, has put forward a plan to get US combat troops out of Iraq by March 31, 2008.
Clinton wants to cap troop levels in the war-torn nation and opposes President George W. Bush's last-ditch surge of forces designed to pacify Iraq.
She has also threatened to work to cut off funds for the Iraqi army, unless Iraqi leaders take responsibility for quelling violence.
The former first lady was forced to defend her 2002 vote in the US Senate authorizing Bush to go to war, while on the campaign trail in the crucial electoral state of New Hampshire on Saturday.
"Knowing what we know now, I would never have voted for it," Clinton said, accusing Bush of misleading the Congress and Americans over the now discredited threat from Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.
The issue of Iraq is especially problematic for Clinton, as she must woo core party activists who are broadly anti-war in order to win the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Obama tells every audience he meets that he is proud that he was against the war from the start, and thought its implications could be difficult to predict.
He did not face the intense political pressure to vote for the war that Clinton did, as he was not yet in the US Senate.
"We ended up authorizing a war that should never have been authorized and never been waged ... (we've) seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted ... 25,000 amputees," Obama told cheering Democratic activists in a rally in Ames, Iowa on Sunday.
Clinton has so far refused, unlike another Democratic Party presidential hopeful, former senator and Democratic vice presidential pick John Edwards, to admit her vote was a mistake.
"I want to be very clear about this: If I had been president in October 2002, I would not have started this war," she said last week. "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will," she said.
Obama also Sunday blasted Australia's Prime Minister John Howard's complaint about his plan to bring US troops home from Iraq as "empty rhetoric."
The senator waded into a major foreign policy row, telling Howard he should dispatch 20,000 Australians to Iraq if he wanted to back up his comments.
"It's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced," Obama told reporters in the Midwestern state of Iowa.
"I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1,400, so if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq. Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."
On Saturday Obama pledged to lead a generational drive to purge cynicism from US politics.
The charismatic senator opened his quest for the Democratic nomination in Illinois, invoking anti-slavery icon Abraham Lincoln. Obama demanded an end to the "tragic" war in Iraq and said he felt a call of destiny to transform his nation.
"Let's be the generation that ends poverty in America," Obama told a outdoor crowd of thousands in frigid temperatures in the Midwestern city of Springfield, Illinois, former president Lincoln's hometown.
Obama later moved on to the snow-blown plains of Iowa, a crucial battleground for presidential hopefuls, as it hosts one of the earliest nominating contests in January 2008 for the Republican and Democratic tickets.
Vowing to transform creaking US health and education systems and to restore alliances abroad, Obama leapt into a Democratic field dominated by Clinton after rocketing to the top of US politics in only two years.
The son of a Kenyan economist and white American mother pledged to bring American troops home from Iraq and combat global warming, as he took his chance in the most open White House race in 80 years.
Obama instantly became the most credible African-American presidential candidate ever to mount a White House campaign and is seen as having a real shot, in the most open White House race for 80 years.
But he told CBS television network in an interview to air Sunday that if he loses it will not be because of race: "If I don't win this race it will be because of other factors -- (that) I have not shown to the American people a vision for where the country needs to go."
Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama, D-IL, speaks during a rally at the Hilton Coliseum of Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa. Obama took to the ice-bound campaign trail, a day after launching his 2008 White House bid with a vow to lead a generational drive to purge the cynicism from US politics.(AFP/Mandel Ngan)
Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama, D-IL, speaks during a press conference at the Hilton Coliseum of Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa. Obama blasted Australia's Prime Minister John Howard's complaint about his plan to bring US troops home from Iraq as "empty rhetoric."(AFP/Mandel Ngan)
LOLOL
Too funny!! A political lightweight like Obama taking on the Hildabeast. This should be in the same category as Dennis and Goliath.
Dennis won't fare too well!!
Alternate title: "Empty Suit Challenges Fat Pantsuit"
Just another instance of liberals cheering the death and wounds of American soldiers.
That demonstration and these depict their true intentions.
Well now, this is getting very interesting.
LMAO
Where were those first 2 pictures from?
This punk is full of Pee and Vinegar First he badmouthed John Howard and Now the Hildabeast. he must not remember Vince Foster ot any of the other people on the Clinton death list. LMAO
What this really sounds like is whichever Clintoon or Obama can outperform each other in performing fellatio on our enemies!!!!
:-(
I think the first one was shot by a FReeper at a Code Pink demonstration. I don't know where the second one came from. I think one of our relatives sent it to me. They know I friggin flip out when I see this crap. Maybe they're trying to cause me to have a stroke.
I understand, but that is their objective, so I think you have to pity people like this, just say bless their heart they don't know better. I figure it delights the idiots to see people who love their country get upset.
LOL - That's fantastic!!!!
Would someone ask Sen. Obama how one side can "wind down" a war? We can either fight or retreat.
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