John Edwards Challenges Hillary on Iraq: Five Questions for Hillary

Edwards is asking Hillary to answer five questions. If you are a Hillary supporter, please ask youself what your answers would be to these questions and then ask yourself what Hillary's answers would be. Are they the same?

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Today, Senator John Edwards released the following statement challenging Senator Clinton to answer five simple questions on her plan for Iraq:

"Senator Clinton has repeatedly said she will 'end the war.' Yet she has provided no plan for how she'll do it. She has only said that she will hold a meeting with her advisors within 60 days of taking office. That's not a plan. It's a promise of a planning meeting. On such an important question we need honesty and answers, not double-talk and evasions.

"As president, I will immediately withdraw 40,000 to 50,000 troops to jump-start the political solution that will end the violence, launch a diplomatic offensive with all local, national, and regional parties, and completely withdraw all combat troops within nine to ten months. If Senator Clinton is the Democratic nominee, the debate with the Republicans will be about how much war we will have in Iraq. If I'm the nominee, the debate will only be about ending the war. We can't be just a little bit better than the Republicans. We have to win this election and bring our brave men and women home to the heroes' welcome they deserve.

"And so today, I am calling on Senator Clinton to offer specific answers to five questions of most concern to voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and all across America."
Five Questions on Iraq that Every Candidate Should Have to Answer:

Question #1: Do you have a specific plan to end the war in Iraq?

Edwards: YES
Senator Clinton: ?

Question #2: As president, will you withdraw all combat troops?

Edwards: YES
Senator Clinton: ?

Question #3: Will you withdraw all combat troops within the first nine to ten months of your presidency?

Edwards: YES
Senator Clinton: ?

Question #4: Will you conduct combat missions with troops stationed inside Iraq?

Edwards: NO
Senator Clinton: ?

Question #5: Will you leave permanent military bases in Iraq?

Edwards: NO
Senator Clinton: ?

http://johnedwards.com/news/press-releases/20071106-five-simple-questions/

for a Clinton defeat!!

Very good idea. Obviously voters deserve to know the answers, so it shouldn't be hard for Senator Clinton to be open with them about where she stands on Iraq :P

:toast:

Question #1: Do you have a specific plan to end the war in Iraq?

Edwards: Sort of.
Senator Clinton: Believes in immediate phased redeployment and intense diplomatic efforts. But unlike Candidate Pie in the Sky, Hillary is not making promises about the war's end.

Question #2: As president, will you withdraw all combat troops?

Edwards: Sort of, they will be withdrawn to more friendly countries only to reinvade Iraq as necessary to fight terrorists
Senator Clinton: Most combat troops will be redeployed leaving a small number in country to fight terrorists.

Question #3: Will you withdraw all combat troops within the first nine to ten months of your presidency?

Edwards: See question # 2.
Senator Clinton: See question # 2

Question #4: Will you conduct combat missions with troops stationed inside Iraq? (I love this one for its lawyerly weaseling)

Edwards: Again see question # 2.
Senator Clinton: Yes unlike Candidate Weasel who will conduct military operations INSIDE Iraq with troops stationed from outside of it.

Question #5: Will you leave permanent military bases in Iraq?

Edwards: NO, instead permanent bases will be constructed just outside of Iraq.
Senator Clinton: There will be military bases in Iraq as long as the US military has a presence there.

you beat me to the punch and saved me the trouble.

good post.

Disingenuousness comes so naturally to him, it's almost scary.

He also wouldn't pledge to have all American troops out of Iraq by 2013 when Tim Russert asked.

"Question #4: Will you conduct combat missions with troops stationed inside Iraq"

parsing the question? :+

We have personnel of that kind in many, many countries, especially marines and others to guard our embassies. That is normal.

finishes his polling so I can figure out what I have always believed on this topic.

She will have military bases to conduct military operations inside Iraq, consequently she can't promise to withdraw combat troops or promise to end the war.

Thank you for the clarification.

in support of Kucinich's HR 333 move to impeach Cheney instead of sniping at each other.


THAT would be valuable.

Its working! :applause:

is John Edwards....Which has been very obvious to non TV news watchers from day one.....These same people who profess not to trust MSM corporate media are eating up every poll that is fed to them, watch the way these robots are always quoting the media polls....They are being maneuvered by republicans the same way, the same media got rid of Howard Dean in order to get a much more easily beatable and moderate candidate, John Kerry in 2004....This media & republicans are always pushing beatable ultra moderates down our throats every day with a new poll and how much money they've raised....Because it's to the republicans benefit to do so.

These are robots, television clowns, eating up every word the lying media tells them....even when many republicans are donating to their candidate, still the ignore it and believe for some reason the republican owned only mainstream television news is give it to them straight this time....we are speaking of the most moderate candidate being pushed with tons of baggage and still - they react like this is a football game and they want to be on the winning team....but ask them about policy and most don't have a clue and still they will ignore the obvious because the are fed Hillary can win all day, every day....When it's truly Edwards whom the mainstream media pounds away on and won't give a chance....

Edwards, a progressive is not who the republicans and their media want running the country....if it has to be a democrat, then the republicans will do all they can to make sure it's a moderate, republican lite, a democrat as the "best republican president" possible....and the republican own media keeps her in our face each and every day as the only one to vote for...these same republican owned CEO and war contractors..... only five corporations that own all the major news on television where more than 80% of the people get their information....

All five of the corporations that control our news are huge contributors to the republican party...ALL five: ABC - Disney, CNN - Time-Warner, Fox - Murdoch, NBC - General Electric and CBS - Viacom. These are the corporations telling people how to vote and pushing these polls and commentary each and every hour....to vote Hillary....no one else and she keeps racking up the bucks democrat & republican.

This is perfect republican manipulation....these fuckers (republicans) don't just sit on their ass and hope....the have proved they are usually always three steps ahead of the democrat eating media....just feed the idiot Dem's and they'll believe anything we all put in front of them.

I have not been able to listen to Thom Hartmann this morning. He is my favorite radio personality at this time.

:thumbsup::bounce::kick:

and don't make waves or bring out the truth - We've been told whom to vote for and it's NOT Edwards, now Edwards should just shut the fuck up and give us the republican polls choice, Hillary! Forget about the real issues and the bullshit lies and deceptions we are being fed - just get in line and stay there!

then no one would care if he critcized another candidate.

Republican bullshit just fed to you and spewing out of your mouth from all sides.

How much TV news do you watch per week then I'll know exactly where your politics lie.

Is Hillary allowed to criticize do you feel it's OK for her to? And who else....everyone except Edwards?

You should stop making this personal.

There is almost nothing more personal to me than whom I support.

Tell me just one candidate who hasn't lied, flipped-flopped, changed their outlooks on issues?

Name one?

Yet, you single out John Edwards and only he is not allowed to criticize...what "facts" on Edwards have been fed to you? And how can Edwards make it up to you, when can he be allowed to criticize? What does he have to do to silence his critics like Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Coulter who despise Edwards and label him with the same label as you do....

Republicans are and have been very effective with these tactic....get us to vote for the Dem they want us to run....they certainly don't want to face Edwards in the general election.

Finally who is the perfect candidate who has never ever flipped-flopped....yes right-wing fucks like Limbaugh have labeled him the same as you and it's as always working....You believe you just thought it up don't you?

If not where did YOU hear it?

I believe the attacks on Edwards are weak. There's a noticeable difference between her desires for the invasion, based on her answers, compared to John's. Some just want to call his positions as hypocritical and taking advantage of not having to be accountable since he's not in office right now, I say that sounds to me like he's on the side of the people then, and will be held accountable for it when he's in office - whereas most of the GOP & our front-runner are accountable to the big money corporations.

who has a senate record as abysmal as John Edwards. He attacks Clinton about Peru, but he won't mention his voting record on China, he attacks her for not making a yes/no question on driver's licenses, when he took 88 words to make the same statement on ABC, he attacks Clinton for taking lobbyists money, but he doesn't mention his own donations from people and bundlers who GIVE money to lobbyists, he preens himself on his apology for voting for the IWR and castigates her, when he had to be pushed to admit that he'd never read the NIE docs and based his apology on the deceit that he had incorrect intel at the time.

More: "Since September, and as White House hints of military action against Iran intensify, the Edwards campaign has changed a key passage in its website's discussion of Iran.

As of September 7, the passage read:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will soon be deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. As president, Edwards will ensure that such steps are not just more rhetoric, but actually lead to results."

The passage now reads:

Congress recently passed a bill to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. We saw in Iraq where such steps by Congress can lead President Bush. Edwards has announced his opposition to this bill.

The rest of the text of the 2,000-word foreign policy page is unchanged. And while this is obviously an update to keep pace with the news, the first version lacks any condemnation of the planned terrorist designation."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1107/A_change_on_Iran.html

More:

"Less than five months ago, the day before Congress was to vote on this very supplemental bill to fund the war in Iraq, Sen. Edwards urged that Congress defeat the bill, stating “Any compromise that funds the war through the end of (the) fiscal year is not a compromise at all -- it's a capitulation.” Edwards added, “Every member of Congress -- every member of Congress should stand their ground on this issue and do everything in their power to block this bill.”

This past Sunday, while on “Meet the Press,” Sen. Edwards was asked by Tim Russert, “You now are in favor of cutting off funding, aren’t you?” to which Sen. Edwards responded with, “No, sir. No.” <“Meet the Press,” NBC News, 10/7/07>"

http://campaignsandelections.com/nh/releases/index.cfm?ID=4886

More:

As we mentioned yesterday, during the NAACP forum Edwards called for ex-convicts’ voting rights to be re-instated. But a rival campaign tipped us off that Edwards voted against a 2002 amendment that would have done just that. It was introduced by Sen. Harry Reid and co-sponsored by Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI). The measure failed 63-31.

It would have been tacked on to a bill -- introduced by Dodd -- to help fund states to meet federal election technology requirements. The bill passed 99-1.

Of the Democratic presidential candidates who were in the Senate at the time, Clinton voted for Reid amendment; Edwards, Dodd and Biden all voted against.

“The vote was to protect the underlying bill to expand voting rights,” the Edwards campaign said, and quickly pointed out, “Dodd sponsored the bill and voted with Edwards.”

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/13/270267.aspx

More:

"Edwards seems to me to have on display here a tendency to say something very smart and then to some extent take it back. After a strident call for withdrawal from Iraq, he said that, well, he actually might keep some troops in Iraq. After a great attack (”some politicians have fallen right in line behind President Bush’s recent proposal to add 92,000 troops between now and 2012, with little rationale given for exactly why we need this many troops”) on his rivals, Edwards winds up punting a little while later — “we might need a substantial increase of troops . . . proposals are worth close examination . . . need to avoid throwing numbers around . . . I will carefully assess the post-Iraq threat environment . . . determine the exact number of troops we need."

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/05/on_the_speech_seriously.php

He's distorting Clinton's positions and ignoring his own. He won't stop with Clinton, he'll try to take down Obama or anyone else if necessary. There's nothing wrong with criticizing or even attacking, but distorting the truth is hypocritical mudslinging, which appears to be the Edwards's standard MO.

Question #1: Do you have a specific plan to end the war in Iraq?

Edwards: YES, I have a specific plan now that I am again running for President (although I didn't have one the first time I ran in 2004) to help end the war that I helped get started when I co-sponsored the IWR and wrote various OP-eds and speeches in favor that we go into Iraq.

Question #2: As president, will you withdraw all combat troops?

Debate question as asked in the 2007 Democratic primary debate at Dartmouth College Sep 26, 2007
Q: Will you commit that at the end of your first term, in 2013, all US troops will be out of Iraq?

EDWARDS: I cannot make that commitment.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/2007_Dem_primary_Dartmouth_John_Edwards.htm

Question #3: Will you withdraw all combat troops within the first nine to ten months of your presidency?

Edwards: YES, I am promising that because it sounds really good, and although I give no real detail on where the 50,000 will come from, they will be withdrawn right away like I said because that sounds better for a campaign to say than the realism that Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama seem to want to insist on when they nuance about the unknown. Maybe they are telling the truth of the uncertainties of making such grand pronouncements, but one has to do what one has to do to get elected when one is polling far behind.

Question #4: Will you conduct combat missions with troops stationed inside Iraq?

Edwards: we will maintain an embassy in Baghdad. That embassy has to be protected. We will probably have humanitarian workers in Iraq. They have to be protected.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/2007_Dem_primary_Dartmouth_John_Edwards.htm

Question not asked of Senator Edwards: What will happen if violence or AlQaeda causes will trouble in Iraq? Will the combat troops you will have stationed outside of Iraq be called back into Iraq?


Question #5: Will you leave permanent military bases in Iraq?

Edwards: NO.

And so I ask John Edwards, "When you were a member of the United States Senate and served on the Select Committee on Intelligence, did you receive information from the Pentagon about the plan to establish as many as fourteen "enduring" bases in Iraq from which the region could be monitored with radar installations and communications intercept facilities?

If so, did you approve of these plans and their funding as well as the effort to get basing rights from Saddam Hussein by diplomatic or other means?


Senator Clinton: we will begin re-deploying our troops as soon as I am President, and we will do so in as expeditious a manner as possible, as few troops as necessary with no permanent occupation, and no permanent bases.
http://www.ontheissues.org/International/Hillary_Clinton_War_+_Peace.htm



Senator Obama: Obama's legislation, offered on the Senate floor last night, would remove all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008. The date falls within the parameters offered by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended the removal of combat troops by the first quarter of next year.
January 31, 2007. The Obama plan, called the Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007, would begin a troop withdrawal no later than May 1, 2007, but it includes several caveats that could forestall a clean break:

It would leave a limited number of troops in place to conduct counterterrorism activities and train Iraqi forces.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001586.html

Q: If you get us out of Iraq and somehow al Qaeda takes over anyway, what will you do then?
A: Well, look,if we had followed my judgment originally, we wouldn't have been in Iraq. We're here now. And we've got no good options. We got bad options and worse options. The only way we're going to stabilize Iraq and make sure that al Qaeda does not take over in the long term is to begin a phased redeployment so that we don't have anti-American sentiment as a focal point for al Qaeda in Iraq. We can still have troops in the region, outside of Iraq, that can help on counterterrorism activities, and we've got to make sure that they don't establish long-term bases there. But right now, the bases are in Afghanistan and in the hills between Afghanistan and Pakistan; that's where we've got to focus.
Source: 2007 AFL-CIO Democratic primary forum Aug 8, 2007

Q: How do we pull out now, without opening Iraq up for Iran and Syria?
A: Look, I opposed this war from the start. Because I anticipated that we would be creating the kind of sectarian violence that we've seen and that it would distract us from the war on terror. At this point, I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. But we have to send a clear message to the Iraqi government as well as to the surrounding neighbors that there is no military solution to the problems that we face in Iraq. So we have to begin a phased withdrawal; have our combat troops out by March 31st of next year; and initiate the kind of diplomatic surge that is necessary in these surrounding regions to make sure that everybody is carrying their weight. And that is what I will do on day one, as president of the United States, if we have not done it in the intervening months.
Source: 2007 YouTube Democratic Primary debate, Charleston SC Jul 23, 2007
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Barack_Obama_War_+_Peace.htm#Iraq_War

It's not like he has a chance in hell of having to live up to his promises or anything.

Television news?

If John Edwards is that for out of the race, then the republican owned media and their polls and the republicans have done their job...Only one candidate a year away from the election left to vote for....Hillary?

So vote for Hillary, we are told and you feel the same way?

You don't feel any manipulation, the media never lies or manipulates, ever....moderate Hillary is the absolute best candidate running...no one even comes close?

How many votes has Hillary collected so far?

It's so easy for him to be so against the war now that it's unpopular and he's no longer in the Senate. I have a question or three for HIM: Why did you co-sponsor the IWR while you were in the Senate? Did you read the intel. estimates? If so, why were you fooled into voting for it? Why should we trust your judgement now?

Answer: No