Clinton: 'Marking time' in Iraq

by Mark Silva

Sen. Hillary Clinton, fighting to save her campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, contends that continuing fighting in Iraq suggests that the “surge’’ of U.S. forces isn’t working.

Clinton, responding to CBS News’ Harry Smith’s notation that attacks within Baghdad have doubled within the last two months and that a dozen U.S. servicemen have died in the last several days, said: “Well, Harry, think you just made a summary argument against
the position that it's working.

“You know, a year ago we were told that the purpose of it was to give the Iraqi government the time to make the decisions that only they can make for themselves on how they're going to allocate oil and the, you know, political disputes and the sectarian violence and all of
the other decisions that are on their plate,’’ Clinton said on CBS’s The Early Show. “That hasn't happened, and even Gen. Petraeus a few weeks ago admitted that the political progress has not been what he would have wanted...

“I just don't understand... how they can make that case,’’ Clinton said. “I am very unhappy with, you know, what has transpired this past year because I really believe that we're just marking time until it is absolutely time to change.

“And that won't happen, apparently, under President Bush until next year,’’ Clinton said on The Early Show. “And when I'm president we will, we'll begin to withdraw our troops.’’

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, leading Clinton in the delegate count for the Democratic nomination, also pledges to start drawing down troops if he is elected president in November. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, supports the administration’s strategy.

“And, you know, Sen. McCain is a friend of mine, I obviously respect his service to our country,’’ Clinton said. “But the failure of leadership here is the Bush administration. It's the failure to continue this conflict, it's the failure to recognize that there is no military solution.’’

And what happens if Iraq, with a U.S. drawdown, falls into “what a lot people believe is an inevitable civil war,’’ Smith asked.

“Well, there's a low-grade civil war going on right now,’’ Clinton said. “It’s Shiite on Shiite, it's Sunni and Shiite. And I think that of course there are very difficult days ahead and the consequences are going to be challenging. But one thing we know for sure is continuing the Bush policy, the Bush-McCain policy now is not a recipe for success.’’