Poll: Is Bill Clinton being honest when he says he opposed the Iraq War from the start?

[TeamJordan23]

Is Bill Clinton being honest when he says he opposed the Iraq War from the start?

[BeyondGeography]

1. Bill doesn't really know, so how can I?

[MethuenProgressive]

30. Poll question doesn't match the choices.

"The IWR" does not equal "The Iraq War", no matter how often the revisionists try to make them interchangeable.

[killbotfactory]

2. Sure

He opposed the war before he supported it openly and publicly.

[Cha]

11. So when did he jump off

The Peace Train?

[flpoljunkie]

25. Bill Clinton: "I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq." The "left?"

Heard this Clinton quote on NBC Nightly News.

[Tom Joad]

32. In Clinton's mind, anyone who opposes the absolute right of a President to wage

war whenever he damn pleases.

[mod mom]

3. Clinton rationalized the impending war on grounds that it would be far less dangerous than doing not

On Eve Of War, Bill Clinton Argued Inaction Was Riskier Than "Overthrowing Saddam"
November 28, 2007 12:55 PM



While stumping for his wife in Iowa on Tuesday former President Bill Clinton claimed unequivocally that he had opposed the war in Iraq from the very onset. It was a much firmer declaration than any he had made prior to the March 2003 invasion. And Clinton's aides later clarified that he had restrained his pre-war criticism out of respect for a sitting president's military decisions.

-snip

One notable example that has yet to make the rounds is a March 18, 2003, op-ed by Bill Clinton in the UK Guardian, titled "Trust Tony's Judgment." Clinton chastised the European states that had vetoed a resolution by ex-Prime Minister Blair justifying the use of force against Saddam if the Iraqi dictator did not meet several time-specific deadlines for weapons inspections.

More importantly, Clinton rationalized the impending war on grounds that it would be far less dangerous than doing nothing at all.

As Clinton opined:

"As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian as well as military casualties. There is, too, as both Britain and America agree, some risk of Saddam using or transferring his weapons to terrorists. There is as well the possibility that more angry young Muslims can be recruited to terrorism. But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam."

-snip

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/28/on-eve-of-war-bill-clint_n_74501.html

[sniffa]

4. it depends on what the meaning of against is

[maddiejoan]

5. I think --

-- He was talking about when he was President, and PNAC was hounding him to go to War.

So your poll would need more options.

[sandnsea]

6. They crafted the Dem IWR strategy

This is what I've been saying all along. They're the reason the Iraq war message got so damned muddled in 2004. Kerry proposed a plan that would begin pulling troops out in 2005 - but the Clintons were all "stay the course". No wonder the media didn't know what to report.

And now he wants to pretend he opposed it from the start???

We Can Do Better.

[rucky]

7. The IWR is not the War.

I thought we resolved this when we nominated Kerry.

Bill Clinton did however pull the rug out from us war protestors once the shock & awe was underway. He was cheerleading for Bush.

[killbotfactory]

15. The Clinton's supported the IWR and the War itself

Like most people who voted for the IWR, they would throw in complaints about the timing or diplomacy, but in the end they endorsed the invasion and nearly all of them claimed it was Saddam's fault we had to invade.

[Hippo_Tron]

29. No, we shut up about it when we nominated Kerry hoping he would win

[AtomicKitten]

8. In the age of instant data recall, parsing has been rendered obsolete.

The record shows him on both sides of the issue, so take your pick.

[surfermaw]

9. YES reason why I think he is telling the truth

A very few weeks after Clinton took office...Republicans wrote him a letter trying to get him to invade Iraq, he wouldn't, however he stayed after Saddam, until if he had weapons of mass destructions he got rid of them, of course we know at one thme he did have chemicals that Saddam used on his own people, can't remember did he use them on Iran....Those chemicals were sold to him by the Reagan administration.

[H2O Man]

10. No.

He's not.

[Adelante]

12. He wouldn't have taken us into the war, I'd say

But "oppose" is something I don't believe he did do at the time. There is a lot of prewar revisionism going around in this primary season.

[Bitwit1234]

13. Is BILL Clinton running for president,,,just asking why what he believed in

has anything to do with the candidates.

[elizm]

23. Because Hillary insists that being his wife qualifies her for Prez???

:shrug:

[wyldwolf]

14. does it matter, really?

I someone produced conclusive proof, it would still be discounted.

So when did the Iraq war actually begin?

Was it just a continuation of the first Gulf war?

Did it really begin when PNAC encouraged Clinton to invade in the 90s?

Did the IWR begin the Iraq war? The first bomb dropped?

Someone (was it Kucinich) recently said the act of conspiring to attack another country is illegal. Did the Iraq war begin when our leaders first started talking about it?

[ieoeja]

16. Good point. Unlike all previous mideast wars, the US failed to leave after Gulf War.

The United States first occupied portions of a mideast country for a long duration beginning in 1991.

We suffered the first attack on US soil by Islamic terrorists in 1993.


Sort of like comparing the UK and France. Conservatives will tell you the reason France became the most targetted country outside the mideast by Islamic terrorists is that they knew the French would not fight back. The real reason is that the UK pulled out of the Mideast and North Africa a few years after the end of World War II while France remained for decades. Attacks on French soil ceased when the French finally shutdown their last permanent (permanent being a relative term) military base in North Africa.

[still_one]

17. Bill Clinton NEVER had sex with that man, i.e. Saddam /nt

[aquart]

18. Push Poll. Implied dishonesty.

Golly, the Republicans have trained us well.

[Imagevision]

19. Bill Clinton is staring to look more like the candidate then Hillary...?!!!

[David Zephyr]

20. K&R.

I started a similar poll and TeamJordan23 already had the same question before us here at the DU which I ignorantly overlooked.

Thanks TeamJordan23 for posing this question as it has been haunting me now and I can't let it slide.

And to answer your question: I don't believe Bill because like millions of us who opposed the war back when we were a hated minority, I know very well who was with us against the war and who wasn't.

[Auntie Bush]

21. Read this article if you want the truth

The beginning and the END concentrate on subject of this post.


Clintons urge caution on action against Iraq
August 31, 2002 Posted: 10:18 AM EDT (1418 GMT)


Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton during a visit to the New York State Fair on Friday.

________________________________________





________________________________________
SYRACUSE, New York (CNN) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the Bush administration to use caution before any military action against Iraq.
Describing her visit to U.S. soldiers injured in Afghanistan and recovering at Washington's Walter Reed Medical Center, the Democratic New York senator asked President Bush to seek congressional approval before any attack on Iraq.




CNN NewsPass Video

• Bush makes Iraq case to Congress


• Iraqi minister scolds U.S. at U.N.


MORE STORIES


• General: U.S. ready to attack Iraq


• Iraq: No new U.N. resolutions


• Bush outlines first-strike doctrine





EXTRA INFORMATION


• Profile: Hans Blix



• Gallery: Reactions to Bush's speech on Iraq



• Timeline: White House states case for Saddam violations



• Interactive: Chemical weapons



• Timeline: U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq



• Map: Area controlled by Kurds



• Interactive Map: World stances on Iraq





RESOURCES


• On the Scene: Rula Amin: Iraqi people relieved



• Text of Iraq letter to U.N.



• U.N. resolutions on Iraq



• U.N. Security Council



• Transcript: Bush address to U.N. General Assembly



• In-Depth: The Unfinished War






"I have personal faces I can put on this debate, and I want to be sure that the president comes with his arguments and information and evidence and that we debate it, and then as a nation we'll stand behind the decision," she said while attending a state fair in upstate New York.
Administration lawyers have concluded President Bush doesn't need congressional approval to launch an attack on Iraq, although White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president would consult Congress.
Fleischer did not say whether consultation would include a congressional vote approving military action, as was done before the Gulf War in 1991.
The former president said the U.S. military could easily win an attack on Iraq and displace its leader, Saddam Hussein, but he questioned whether it should be done.
"Everybody knows that he's been a thug, hasn't been good for his people, hasn't been good for the region. There's no question people would be better off without him," Clinton said, but warned: "You don't do things just because you can."
While he said he has no doubt the Iraqi leader has stocks of biological and chemical weapons, and has used them on his own people, Clinton said there should be a "large-scale public debate" on whether to wage war.

[Cameron27]

24. Thank you

[K Gardner]

22. Is Bill running for President/why should I care? n/t

[IndianaGreen]

26. Karl Rove is now saying that the Democrats forced the 2002 vote on IWR

while Bush was urging caution. He is re-writing history, just as Bill and Hillary Clinton are re-writing their own version of history. Where is the difference?

[robbedvoter]

28. The difference is that Rove will convince many of his story (echo chamber will help)

And if you have a candidate who sponsored IWR you're doomed (pretty bad with the ones who voted for it too). Considering that Bill Clinton resisted pressure to invade Iraq, I fear Hillary the least to follow the neocons and sponsors of IWR much much more.

[robbedvoter]

27. I do remember his speaking out against the war. later he stopped.

But in the beginning he said that Saddam has nothing and there are higher priorities - OBL et al. I have some articles saved somewhere from this period. One is called "Bill Clinton leads the opposition to war" Questioning his sincerity is lame - after all, he's been resisting the neocons throughout his presidency. I was disappointed when he changed tune.

[Tom Joad]

31. liar, liar. He waged war against Iraq. Such a dumbass.

but in his defense, maybe the only thing he remembers from his presidency are the blowjobs. the ones he gave to corporate ceo's, metaphorically speaking.