Clinton Sides With Hagel On Iraq
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has a preference when it comes to the various Iraq bills floating around Congress. She likes the one that has Chuck Hagel's name on it. From an evening release:
“The resolution on Iraq introduced today by Senators Biden, Hagel, Levin and Snowe clearly lays out the bipartisan disapproval of President Bush’s misguided policy of escalation in Iraq. The resolution states that our strategy should be focused on having Iraqi leaders make the political compromises necessary to end the violence in Iraq and endorsing a regional, internationally-sponsored peace and reconciliation process for Iraq. I will co-sponsor the Biden-Hagel-Levin-Snowe resolution and look forward to supporting this legislation when it reaches the Senate floor.”
BTW, there are two WH '08 hopefuls who introduced this Iraq bill -- Joe Biden and Hagel. Is this turning more into Hagel's bill than Biden-Hagel's bill?
Update: The WH chose to release a partial transcript of today's Tony Snow briefing, specifically Snow's response to Clinton's critiques. BTW, ask yourself, why is the WH interested in elevating Clinton's critiques, or in this case, agreements?
SNOW: "Today, Senator Clinton, on national TV, was talking about placing conditions, on Iraqis – as you just mentioned – to place pressure on them. The President made it very clear that the American public has limited patience when it comes to Iraq. And we do expect to see things happen. We understand that despite the conditions of violence, it's important to go ahead and continue on the political track, where it's possible.
"Within the last 24 hours, there has been progress on the hydrocarbon law, and the hydrocarbon law may be one of the most important in terms of building a basis for national agreement because it allows all Iraqis, regardless of whether there is any oil in their province or not, to share in oil and natural gas revenues. Also, there appears to be progress toward reforming the de-Baathification laws, which have denied full participation in the political and economic processes to people who held a Baath Party card simply because that was a condition of peaceful employment, just teachers and civil servants, in a time of Saddam Hussein.
"Also, she had talked about the importance of a regional conference. And we couldn't agree more. She said that the Administration had refused, and point of fact, not only have we been instrumental in [forwarding] the Iraq Compact, which brings together countries throughout the region, just yesterday Secretary Rice was in the region for meetings – the Gulf States plus Egypt and Jordan, the GCC plus two. Among other things, they talked about in a joint statement, that they welcomed a commitment by the United States as stated in President Bush's recent speech to defend the security of the Gulf, the territorial integrity of Iraq, and ensure a successful, fair, and inclusive political process that engages all Iraqi communities and guarantees the stability of the country. We couldn't agree more – it's important to get the region involved. We've been doing it over the past week, not only with regard to Israel and Palestine, but also with Gulf neighbors, being involved in the future of Iraq.
"So it's interesting if you take a look – if you look at some of the critiques, in some cases maybe they don't take into account we actually are doing or what the Iraqis are doing."
