Hillary Clinton on Iraq March 6, 2003 w/video

This is what Hillary Clinton was thinking on March 6, 2003.

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm’s way and that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm.  And I have absolutely no belief that he will.  I have to say that this is something I have followed for more than a decade.  If he were serious about disarming he would have been much more forthcoming...

video after the flip.

HIllary starts talking at the 6:30 mark.

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm’s way and that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm.  And I have absolutely no belief that he will.  I have to say that this is something I have followed for more than a decade.  If he were serious about disarming he would have been much more forthcoming...

   I just respectfully disagree about what the proximate cause of any action that might be taken is...  

   The very difficult question for all of us is how does one bring about the disarmament of someone with such a proven track record of a commitment, if not an obsession, of weapons of mass destruction.  And I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information and intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, trying to discount political or other factors that I didn't believe should be in any way a part of this decision.  

   And it is unfortunate that we are at the point of a potential military action to enforce the resolution. That is not my preference, it is would be far more pref fi we not only had legitimate cooperation from Saddam Hussein and a willingness on his part to disarm and account for his chemical and biological storehouses, but that if we had a much broader alliance and coalition.   But we are in a very difficult position right now.  I would love to agree with you but I can't based on my own understanding and assessment of the situation.

•  I believe she's lying! in fact, I know she is.

  not that that's a surprise.

  by JayGR on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:40:03 PM PDT

  •  Lying ain't the half of it

    Don't let her near that red phone. She's a neocon in a blue pantsuit.

    by FishOutofWater on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 06:26:44 PM PDT

    •  LOL Fish :-)

      by Wild Starchild on Mon Mar 03, 2008 at 10:02:40 AM PDT

•  Tips, Mojo, Alms for the poor.

  Buddy can you spare some mojo.

  I will gladly pay you Tuesday for some mojo today.

  by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:41:47 PM PDT

  •  Thank you!

    I read this when you posted it on the other thread and I'm still fuming about it.  Everybody should watch this video.

    by jmaps on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:51:30 PM PDT

    •  Pimp this diary.

      You can but I can't.

      by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:56:43 PM PDT

      •  I just did and I'm about to it again.

        This video needs to make the rec list. I wish someone could cut it, though, so it started with Hillary speaking.

        by Circle on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 06:06:15 PM PDT

•  I forgot to mention

  The transcribing for this was done by William S Martin.

  Thanks buddy.

  by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:44:29 PM PDT

  •  Tips for William

    by valadon on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:03:44 PM PDT

•  The Quote

  The important quote here

  And I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information and intelligence that I had available,

  We now know that just was not true, she did not read the NIE the single most important intelligence document.

  by aprichard on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:44:39 PM PDT

  •  talking with people whose opinions I trusted...

    if I recall correctly, that was Bush administration people.

    Her single crisis moment and she blew it by trusting the most untrustworthy people in Washington, DC

    by JayGR on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:48:40 PM PDT

  •  Good point

    She was lying then.  And she's lying now, pretending she didn't support taking the country to war.  This really pisses me off!

    by smari006 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:56:47 PM PDT

  •  Apparently, she didn't have enough intelligence.

    To make a good decision.

    by chicago jeff on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:08:34 PM PDT

  •  Chart of Senators

    who did and did not read the NIE is at the bottom of this page: http://thehill.com/...

    by dharmafarmer on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:52:20 PM PDT

    •  Interesting

      according to that table 71% of Democrats that read the NIE voted against the AUMF (10 of 14) and only 32% of Democrats that did not read it voted against the AUMF (6 of 13). This has a P-value of 0.024, meaning (roughly) that there is only a 2.4% chance that reading NIE and voting for the AUMF are unrelated.

      We can't know if reading the NIE made them more likely to vote nay or if Senators that were going to vote yea anyway were less likely to read the NIE.

      by aprichard on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 07:27:15 PM PDT

      •  So, if the phone rings at 3:00 am,

        we need to ask if Hillary did her homework before she went to bed?

        I can't believe she could make those statements to Code Pink without reading the NIE.

        by shady8 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 07:54:14 PM PDT

        •  It is staggering

          She must of known this would be the biggest vote of her Senate career. It really supports the conclusion that she made the vote based on political calculations not on national security considerations.

          by aprichard on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:01:13 PM PDT

          •  Exactly, she fell in line with imperialist

            militarism because of the political expediency of doing so.

            She calls that LEADERSHIP? More like FOLLOWERSHIP.

            by shady8 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:03:41 PM PDT

    •  I see Edwards didn't read it either :-(

      by Wild Starchild on Mon Mar 03, 2008 at 10:09:21 AM PDT

•  Don't know if she personally

  followed the situation for a decade but Bill did.  Like Poppy and GWB, Bill's policy was for regime change and the whole disarmament thing was a ruse to facilitate the US backed toppling of Saddam.  As Bill didn't have enough political capital to actually invade the country, he had to settle for backing a coup (failed), thwarting the efforts of the UN weapons inspectors to finalize their report which insured that the sanctions would remain in place (the half million children were "collateral damage" -- worth it according to M. Albright) and bombing up the place every once in a while.  (Ritter has the scoop on much of this in Iraq Confidential and it was uglier than I've suggested.

  She backed GWB because that is what she would have done if she were president and had as much political capital as he had.  That's why her statements on Iran and Venezuela should not be dismissed.  She is on the same page with the GOP on those two states.  

  by Marie on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:53:53 PM PDT

  •  Thanks for the context.

    It was very helpful.

    by oscarsdad on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:07:11 PM PDT

•  WOW!

  This video is damning.  Has this been on YouTube since March of 2003?

  by smari006 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:54:57 PM PDT

  •  I dairied this last August

    It didn't get much notice and there was no text.

    by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:04:16 PM PDT

    •  Really?

      I wonder if you need a snappier title?  Something like "Hillary Gets a Pink Slip" or some such?  

      by smari006 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:11:13 PM PDT

•  What's wrong with Lying? Bush does it.

  All the time.

  by chicago jeff on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:07:43 PM PDT

  •  Asked and answered.

    :)

    by oscarsdad on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:08:28 PM PDT

•  I feel like Reccing you every time

  I see your handle.  Why Gingy, instead of Gamgee?

  by oscarsdad on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:07:58 PM PDT

  •  I didn't check the spelling

    I'm bad about that.

    Firefox has a built in spell checker, so I use it all of the time now.

    Thanks

    by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:15:55 PM PDT

•  I think the video is a bit long, but it is hard

  to understand exactly what the context of her statements are without watching a significant portion of the video.

  I think you would get a much more rapid response if you updated your diary to contain a few important facts that can be gleaned from the video, just to help people who want to watch a sound byte instead of a full-length video.

  The important thing is this:  the group she was talking to explains that they are against taking military action against Iraq, and that they believe the charges against Saddam Hussein have been exaggerated.

  Then Hillary explains why she cannot agree with them, and that her support for the AUMF was based on blah blah blah as is clearly stated in the transcript you've provided.

  Basically, she is saying it is her considered opinion that we must use military force to disarm Saddam Hussein.

  Thanks for the video, it is very important but it needs to be repackaged for a more sound-byte-oriented audience.

  by oscarsdad on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:28:21 PM PDT

•  12 people voted "Yes?"

  They couldn't have watched the video.

  by smari006 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:34:04 PM PDT

  •  Oops. Make that 8.

    I guess I should learn from Hillary's mistake and actually read the report.

    by smari006 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:35:18 PM PDT

•  Hillary lies with ease.......nt

  by Hope Monger on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:37:27 PM PDT

•  She lies through the air with the greatest of

  ease.

  by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 05:39:57 PM PDT

•  "I am the Senator of New York!"

  Correction, Hil:  You're one of them, and you're the JUNIOR Senator.  And you were wrong.

  by letsstartover on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 06:30:17 PM PDT

•  This really is devasting given the date

  By then the inspectors were in, finding nothing. Saddam had destroyed missiles that were borderline in terms of compliance. She has said she voted for inspections - but this was AFTER we all saw missiles being destroyed on TV and inspectors arriving at Presidential palaces. I am just glad that I am seeing this when she will most likely not win. From this, it is hard to believe that had she been President, she would not have invaded.

  by karenc on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 07:08:50 PM PDT

•  The. same. thing. is. being. done. to. Iran.

  Fool me once shame on me.
  Fool me twice --  the USA is plumb out of shame.

  Code Pink for President!

  aaaaiiiigggghhh!  "I have spoken out on those issues.....I respect your right to disagree.....given the attitudes
  willingness to take on very difficult problems if it were not for the US....."

  This is the Neville Chamberlain trap that Israel & US are setting up regarding Iran.  Trita Parsi analysed it HERE, on Tikkun Olam

  Key to Lowering Iran’s Hostility to Israel, U.S.-Iran Rapprochement

  October 14, 2007 at 1:33 am · Filed under Politics & Society, Mideast Peace

     ...Israel’s fear of a U.S.-Iran dialogue is misplaced and...it actually is through a U.S.-Iran rapprochement that the Jewish state best can secure its interest and change Iran’s aggressive behavior towards Israel.
     –Dr. Trita Parsi, guest blogging at Rootless Cosmopolitan

  Now, that's a refreshing notion. Not endless war, but an actual way out of an impossible impasse. Imagine that. Trita Parsi has done just that in his new book, Treacherous Alliance. He's taken apart the false rhetoric on all sides of the debate and used hard-headed realism to offer a way out of the mess that Iran, Israel and the U.S. have made for themselves.

  Tony Karon is to be commended for giving him this platform in Rootless Cosmopolitan.

  The most interesting aspect of his essay is the analysis of Bibi Netanyahu's hypocritical about-face regarding Iran. Now, he calls the Iranian mullahs mad and pounces on every Ahmadinejad pronouncement as if Hitler has been reborn in Teheran. But once upon a time it wasn't that way. It was Netanyahu who was the Iran dove, hard as that may be to believe now:

     Benjamin Netanyahu would like Americans and Israelis to believe that it’s 1938 all over again: Iran, he tells us, is Nazi Germany; President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler. And, of course, that means that anyone who advocates diplomacy and engagement with Tehran is simply reprising the tragic appeasement politics of Neville Chamberlain, even as the clock ticks towards catastrophe.

     The 1938 analogy is entirely fallacious, but no less powerful because of it – by at once terrifying people and negating the alternatives to confrontation, it paints war as a necessary evil forced on the West by a foe as deranged and implacable as Hitler was.

     If Iran is, as Netanyahu and his allies in the U.S. suggest, irrationally aggressive, prone to a suicidal desire for apocalyptic confrontation, then both diplomacy and deterrence and containment are ruled out as policy options for Washington. The "Mad Mullahs," as the neocons call them, are not capable of traditional balance of power realism. In the arguments of Netanyahu and such fellow travelers as Norman Podhortez and Newt Gingrich, to imagine that war against the regime in Tehran is avoidable is to be as naïve as Chamberlain was in 1938.

     However...not only does Netanyahu’s characterization of Iran have little relationship to reality; Netanyahu himself knows this better than most. Outside of the realm of cynical posturing by politicians, most Israeli strategists recognize that Iran represents a strategic challenge to the favorable balance of power enjoyed by Israel and the U.S. in the Middle East over the past 15 years, but it is no existential threat to the Israel, the U.S. or the Arab regimes.

     And that was the view embraced by the Likud leader himself during his last term as prime minister of Israel...Netanyahu strongly push[ed back against the orthodoxy of his Labor Party predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, which treated Iran as one of Israel’s primary enemies. Not only that, he initiated an extensive discreet program of reaching out to the Islamic Republic.

  Parsi notes that Netanyahu's outreach to the Iranians failed since they were only interested in rapprochement with Washington, but not Israel. But Parsi maintains that Netanyahu's first inclination to tone down the rhetoric against Iran was the right one and in Israel's long-term strategic interest:

     Today, Israel is facing a similar situation, but with one big difference. Iran is far more powerful than it was in 1996, while the power of the U.S. to impose its will in the Middle East has diminished considerably. The difficulties confronting the U.S. in Iraq and technological progress in Iran’s nuclear program may compel Washington to recognize that its best interests lie in a grand bargain with Tehran. But the general view in Israel today is the notion that such negotiations must be prevented, because all potential outcomes of a U.S.-Iran negotiation are perceived to be less optimal for Israel than the status quo of intense U.S.-Iran enmity that threatens to boil over into a military clash.

     It’s precisely to prevent such engagement between Washington and Tehran that Netanyahu and company are pressing the 1938 analogy.

     ...Israel’s fear of a U.S.-Iran dialogue is misplaced and...it actually is through a U.S.-Iran rapprochement that the Jewish state best can secure its interest and change Iran’s aggressive behavior towards Israel.)

  by Orpheus on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 07:33:12 PM PDT

  •  Code Pink --- American Heroines n/t

    by smari006 on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:01:13 PM PDT

•  I'm glad they made the tape. n/t

  by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:06:01 PM PDT

  •  Me too. I have been working this evening on a

    more complete transcript, which with your permission I will post in a diary tomorrow.  I will
    provide a link to your diary rather than embedding the video in my diary, so they see your diary and the discussion on it.

    Thanks again for posting this video, I hope I can get it out to a larger part of Daily Kos tomorrow.

    by oscarsdad on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:35:50 PM PDT

    •  Bless you.

      Go for it.

      by Sam Wise Gingy on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:43:43 PM PDT

•  She wags her finger just like Bill did. n/t

  by RoxieInTexas on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:12:54 PM PDT

•  This is why

  I vowed in 2003, while marching up Congress Avenue in March 2003 with 10,000 people protesting the impending war, I vowed that I would NEVER support Hillary for president. It was so obvious then and now, that her moves in 2003 were just to position herself for a run for the White House in the future.

  Seriously, that video makes me want to weep tears of fury. She betrayed us when we needed her the most.

  by bruised toes on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:26:33 PM PDT

•  Hey everyone, Digg it!

  You can get the word out at digg.com. Search for "Hillary Clinton on Iraq March 6, 2003 w/video"

  by TuvanDrone on Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 08:41:04 PM PDT

•  Hillary in her own words OWNS Iraq invasion

  The video reiterates how Hillary Clinton felt then and there has been little in what she has said in the 20 debates that cause me to think she has much changed her opinion or mind.  

  While she points the finger at Bush Administration (justifiably), it feels more like her 'politicking' to point the finger away from herself.  In the video, she makes it very clear she voted in favor of the war for her own reasons.  

  We have two in our family who are returning Iraq veterans; OIF March 2003 - August 2004.  The initial invasion, the first of the 'stop-loss' extended deployments.  One is back in Iraq now in his second 'stop-loss' extended deployment.  The other had himself discharged because he did not want to go back to Iraq for another deployment.  He was already 10 years career military, when he had himself discharged.

  Being that I was raised as what is called a 'military brat', and a young military wife to husband who was drafted and deployed to Vietnam,and maybe exactly because of those circumstances, I was very opposed to Gulf War 1 and more so to invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq.  War being war, and politics being politics, I have learned it would seem far better to exercise the principle I heard growing up of having a ready military to prevent or prohibit going into war.

  The video, being one of Code Pink's campaigns may put some people off while others will applaud their courage. I met Code Pink for the first time as a result of the first Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, Aug 2005.  I was one of the first military families speaking out to arrive after Cindy Sheehan sat down to make her stand; and despite what has come after, that was and will remain a historic moment.  

  While I continue to have ambivalent feelings about Code Pink tactics, I appreciate that their strategy is aimed at bringing to attention what is not always visible in media-press coverage. And they unquestionably desire absolutely an end to Iraq war, better stated they were on the frontlines trying to ensure that it never got started.

  This video find is a valued piece of history.  Thank you for sharing it here.

  by dyingwarriors on Mon Mar 03, 2008 at 11:17:35 AM PDT