ALL The Ducks in a Row

June 4, 2007
Iraq Is Flash Point as 8 Democratic Rivals Clash
By ROBIN TONER and JEFF ZELENY
GOFFSTOWN, N.H., June 3 — The three leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination attacked each other overtly and subtly Sunday over Iraq and their judgment, honesty and leadership in handling that war.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the front-runner in national polls, both drew fire and calmly returned it in the second nationally televised Democratic debate, arguing that the differences among the Democrats were minor compared with their differences with President Bush.

But former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina repeatedly went after Mrs. Clinton and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, accusing them of being followers in Congress — not leaders — in the effort to bring an end to the war.

“There are differences between us,” said Mr. Edwards, who has campaigned hard for the support of antiwar Democrats. “And I think Democratic voters deserve to know the differences between us. I think there is a difference between making very clear when the crucial moment comes, on Congress ending this war, what your position is, and standing quiet.”

Mr. Obama, for his part, noted that he opposed the war while still in the Illinois Senate in the fall of 2002, unlike Mr. Edwards, who voted to authorize the use of force but has since repudiated that vote. “The fact is that I opposed this war from the start,” Mr. Obama said to Mr. Edwards. “So you’re about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue.”

It was one of several striking exchanges — arguably the sharpest of the Democratic campaign — that highlighted the three-way nature of this race for the nomination. The eight Democratic candidates squared off on the campus of St. Anselm College here, just outside Manchester, in a state that has jealously protected its traditional position as the first primary in the nation.

Stagecraft heightened political reality, with CNN placing the three front-runners next to one another before tall lecterns for the first hour of the two-hour debate. Mrs. Clinton was in the center, a place she also sought to hug on the political spectrum.

Often, she seemed to be looking beyond the Democratic primary and toward the general election. On the war in particular, she seemed intent on focusing attention not on her initial vote to authorize the war and how her record on that issue compares with the records of her rivals for the nomination, but on the larger divide between the two parties.

“This is George Bush’s war,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And what we are trying to do, whether it’s by speaking out from the outside or working and casting votes that actually make a difference from the inside, we are trying to end the war.”

But Mrs. Clinton’s efforts to step above the fray of a primary — to be presidential — did not stop her opponents. Mr. Edwards, noting that he had acknowledged that he was wrong to vote for the use of force, pointedly added, “It is important for anybody who seeks to be the next president of the United States, given the dishonesty that we’ve been faced with over the last several years, to be honest to the country.”

Mrs. Clinton has declined to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, much to the dismay of antiwar Democrats. But she has steadily moved toward an antiwar policy and has said that if she knew in 2002 what she knows today, she would vote differently.

The mounting pressure from the party’s base to quickly end the war drew a few gentle protests from some of the candidates, including Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the only Democratic presidential candidate in the Senate who voted for the Iraq spending legislation that passed last month. Under a continued threat of a presidential veto, Democratic leaders stripped a timeline for troop withdrawal from the legislation.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’re going to end this war when you elect a Democratic president,” Mr. Biden said. Referring to what it takes to override a veto in the Senate, Mr. Biden said, “You need 67 votes to end this war. I love these guys who tell you they’re going to stop the war.”

The three leading candidates also debated whether senators should have read, in 2002, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which made clear there was disagreement within the government over the strength of Iraq’s weapons programs. Asked if she regretted not reading it, Mrs. Clinton replied: “I feel like I was totally briefed. I knew all of the arguments that were being made by everyone from every direction.”

But, Mr. Obama said, “obviously there was some pertinent information there,” noting that former Senator Bob Graham of Florida, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had cited the report as a factor in his vote against authorizing the war.

In general, Mr. Obama appeared more forceful and poised than he did during the first debate, on April 26 in South Carolina. Later, even he conceded he had stumbled in answering a question about how he would respond to a terrorist attack on American soil. When asked Sunday night about how he would deal with Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama declared, “You take him out.”

A day after four men were charged with attempting to sabotage Kennedy International Airport, the candidates were asked whether the Bush administration’s war on terrorism had been a success domestically. Mr. Edwards said that it had not, calling it “a global war on terror bumper sticker — political slogan, that’s all it is.”

But Mrs. Clinton shot back that she disagreed. “I’m a senator from New York. I have lived with the aftermath of 9/11,” she said. “I believe we are safer than we were. We are not yet safe enough.”

During the two-hour debate, the candidates were asked questions about a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues. Asked what he would do to address high gasoline prices, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut said he would require a 50-mile per-gallon standard for automobiles within 10 years.

Senator Clinton was asked whether her husband’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military was a mistake. “No. It was an important first step,” she said, calling it “a transition policy.”

Asked to raise their hands if they supported repealing the policy, all eight Democrats signaled that they did.

The candidates also were asked how, if elected to the White House, they would use the former president. “Obviously Senator Clinton may have something to say about how I use Bill Clinton,” Mr. Obama said as the crowd laughed aloud. With a wide smile of her own, she replied, “When I become president, Bill Clinton, my dear husband, will be one of the people who will be sent around the world as a roving ambassador.”

The forum was moderated by Wolf Blitzer of CNN, which played host to the debate with WMUR-TV and The Union Leader of New Hampshire. In the second hour, the candidates sat down and took questions from voters, many of which centered on foreign affairs, from undertaking military action in Iran to rebuilding alliances with Pakistan to intervening on the violence in Sudan.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico said the United States should lean on China to pressure the Sudanese government to allow more United Nation as peacekeepers into the northern African nation, where at least 300,000 people have died and two million have been driven from their homes. “If the Chinese don’t want to do this, we say to them, maybe we won’t go to the Olympics,” he said, referring to the 2008 summer games.

Most of the debate time was allotted to the leading contenders, which generated some complaints from the other candidates.