Where they ALL stand on Iraq - all the 2008 Prez wannabes

[jillan]

Dems and the repugs.
Thought this was interesting reading.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-22-candidates-iraq-2008_x.htm?csp=34

Potential presidential candidates' views on Iraq range from withdrawal to partitioning -- and then there's McCain



STANCES AT A GLANCE

Where the potential U.S. presidential candidates stand on the Iraq war:

DEMOCRATS
(*These senators held office in 2002 and voted to authorize military force to oust Saddam Hussein, but have since become critics of the war):

• Evan Bayh*: Indiana senator supported the unsuccessful Levin-Reed amendment in June, which urged Bush to transfer greater responsibility to the Iraqis and begin a phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year.

• Joe Biden*: Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman-elect advocates a plan to divide Iraq along ethnic lines, relying on a central government only for matters of border control and allocation of oil resources. The Delaware senator has criticized efforts to install a Western-style democracy.

• Wesley Clark: Retired four-star general and former NATO commander criticized the war as "a path to nowhere — replete with hyped intelligence, macho slogans and an incredible failure to see the obvious." The 2004 presidential candidate said the goal to institute Western-style government was a flawed idea. He recently called for sustained shuttle diplomacy in the region and increased cooperation among the White House, Pentagon and State Department.

• Hillary Rodham Clinton*: New York senator has criticized the way the war has been conducted, voting for the Levin-Reed amendment. "Our country desperately needs a foreign policy based on bipartisan consensus and executed with nonpartisan competence," she said. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Nov. 15, she quizzed Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, about dividing the country along ethnic lines.

• Chris Dodd*: Connecticut senator supported the Levin-Reed amendment. He recently said he would prefer Iraqis take greater responsibility and the U.S. immediately deploy troops away from urban areas, into rural areas and along the border. Dodd opposes an ethnically divided Iraq and favors aggressive diplomacy.

• John Edwards*: 2004 vice presidential nominee and former North Carolina lawmaker advocates a phased troop redeployment from Iraq.

• John Kerry*: 2004 presidential nominee voted against additional funds for the effort and has said the authorization vote was his biggest legislative mistake. In June, the Massachusetts senator and Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, co-sponsored an amendment that would have set a July 1, 2007, deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The amendment failed.

• Barack Obama: Illinois senator is a longtime critic of the war, elected to the Senate after the conflict began. He voted for the Levin-Reed amendment but not the Kerry-Feingold amendment. In a recent speech, Obama called a "gradual and substantial" reduction of U.S. forces from Iraq that would begin in four months to six months. He also called for intensified efforts to train Iraqi security forces and new diplomacy with Syria and Iran.

• Bill Richardson: In September, the New Mexico governor and former U.N. ambassador outlined a strategy for Iraq that echoed the Biden approach: "I would set a timetable for withdrawal. I would couple that with a political solution of the three ethnic groups forcing them to have a political solution. There is no military solution. Specifically, I would divide up the oil revenue, the cabinet ministries and force them to come up with a new political framework."

• Tom Vilsack: Iowa governor bemoaned the loss of the U.S. ability to negotiate a solution because it has squandered its diplomatic clout. "The U.S. doesn't seem like it's in position to broker peace," he said. "It doesn't seem to have the power. ... We're now dependent on other states to carry out diplomacy."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REPUBLICANS


• Sam Brownback: Kansas senator has supported the war and maintained his optimism. "We are coming to a time when we can hand this, much more, over to the Iraqis," he said.

• Bill Frist: He voted for the use of force and continues to defend his vote. "Leaving Iraq to the terrorists is simply not an option," said the Senate majority leader. He joined Bush to oppose Democratic calls to withdraw forces from Iraq, but the Tennessee senator acknowledged the war made it tough for Republican candidates.

• Newt Gingrich: The former House speaker has been critical of the war and the way it has been fought. He said in South Dakota the U.S. should withdraw most of its troops, leaving a small force behind similar to the postwar forces in Korea and Germany. "It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003," he said. "We have to pull back, and we have to recognize it."

• Rudy Giuliani: Former New York City mayor has supported Bush's war on terror and has said Democrats "don't support the military the way Republicans do." He said any withdrawal would only encourage future attacks. "The jihadists very much want a victory in Iraq."

• Lindsey Graham: South Carolina senator opposes arbitrary withdrawal, although he has been critical of the war. He said U.S. and Iraqi officials should be held accountable for the lack of progress. "We're on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not working."

• Chuck Hagel: Nebraska senator strongly criticized the Bush administration, publicly questioning the president's plan and advisers. He recently said McCain's call to send more troops comes too late. "The time for more troops is past. We don't want to put more troops in now."

• Duncan Hunter: Californian has led the House Armed Services Committee as a staunch defender of the war and administration. His son, a Marine artillery officer, has served in Iraq. "This falloff of support among Democratic ranks is not shared by ... our troops."

• John McCain: Arizona senator has warned that any pullout of troops could be disastrous. He has pushed the president to send in a heavy wave of troops to quell the violence and establish order. He has been public in his criticism of how the war has been run, but not the goals. During an exchange with Abizaid, McCain said: "I regret deeply that you seem to think that the status quo and the rate of progress we're making is acceptable. I think most Americans do not."

• Mitt Romney: Massachusetts governor pledged support for the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 but later criticized Bush for not doing an "adequate job" outlining the rationale for the war. He said the attack was based on faulty intelligence and argued the U.S. had provided insufficient troops to stabilize the country.

• Tommy Thompson: Former Wisconsin governor and Health and Human Services chief has acknowledged Iraq will be a major issue in 2008 but has faced few questions about his views on the war.

[JeffR]

1. Thank you, pirhana

Nice to see this information gathered together this way.

[elocs]

2. Any Democratic candidate who voted for Iraq war funding will have an albatross around their neck.

It will be brought up time and time again for the ones who were standing on one foot and now on the other. Let's hope any change of belief about the war is due to conscience and not a finger in the wind.

[jillan]

3. Or Republican

It will be nice to have this reference when we see all of the
"flip-flopping" that will be coming out of their big mouths.

[elocs]

6. Well, yes, but I'm not going to vote for a Republican.

Or be forced to vote for another Democratic candidate who is against the war after having voted first to fund it. Feingold had that figured out, too bad others didn't.

[rep the dems]

4. Lindsey Graham is on the list?

I had no idea he was considered a potential candidate. Never the less, thanks for the list.

[MindMatter]

5. Which is to say ....

the the only one of the whole lot who has anything remotely resembling a constructive, specific plan is Biden. All the other positions are either simply criticisms of what Bush has done or else so nebulous as to allow them to stake out any position in the future, depending on which way the wind blows.

Kudos to Biden for having the guts to put a specific solution on the table.

======

Thank you for pulling this together. It is very helpful. We need to push all of those guys to get off the sidelines and make a real plan happen.

Let's get this onto the Greatest list where it belongs.

[cali]

7. kick for an informative post, and

one that is researched and well laid out. Thanks

[jpwhite]

8. Frist doesn't know what he is talking about

I'm in Iraq right now and I can tell you that if we were to all leave tomorrow that the country would be in the hands of a Shia majority, not in the hands of terrorists. It has been rumored for months that the Iraqi police are looking away when the Shias commit violence against Sunnis. We need to pull in the Syrians and Iranians and get the Shias and Sunnis to sit down and talk this out. It's in both sides interest to have peace. That's what we need to do.

Frist's response is just rhetoric. They keep talking about these unnamed faceless "terrorists". We need to get the shias ans sunnis in Iraq to stop killing each other, and refocus our efforts on the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are still there. They are making farmers grow poppy so the Taliban can make heroin. We haven't caught Osama bin Laden, who is the real mastermind behind 9/11.

James
[e-mail]

ps. I'm leaving today and coming home!!!

[bklyncowgirl]

9. McCain's actually rather interesting. "If they had listened to me..."

If I understand his position correctly.

This war is winnable if we put large numbers of U.S. troops in and do what is necessary to defeat the insurgents.

If we are unwilling or unable to do what is necessary we should pull out since forcing troops to be in harms way in order to delay an inevitable defeat would a terrible thing to do.

Of course right now it is highly questionable that the war is winnable even with increased numbers of troops and then there is the question of where we would get the troops for McCain's plan. He probably knows damn well that this is not going to happen and he is setting himself up as the "If they had listened to me...." candidate for 2008.

Gingrich almost sounds like a Democrat.

[bigdarryl]

10. There all chicken shits the only solution to the Iraq war is...

get the fuck out NOW!!! we should have left YESTERDAY!! no redeployment(what ever that means) no phase redeployment get out now and leave the country to them to fight over. but you see this government and coward politician's can't do that because of the OIL interest in that country.which is why we are there in the first place. all this bullshit about democracy is nothing more than getting someone in Iraq that will do as we say not as we do.

[leesa]

11. Clinton and Biden are true colonialists. They think that we can just rightly

invade countries for no reason and then just divide them up as we see fit to solve the problem. Their only beef seems to be in how the invasion was 'conducted'. Scary folk.

None of them are coming out and saying the real truth of the matter, which is really disappointing. We have to deal with the crime of it too.

[MindMatter]

12. Well, to some degree, Biden's proposal amounts to ...

undoing or rectifying the original colonization moves that forced these three distinct tribes into a single nation -- a nation that we now know can only be unified under the firm grasp of a brutal tyrant.

I think it can be argued that the two choices are to go with Biden's plan or else to back another brutal tyrant as we did before. Hey, I head Saddam's available.