As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton aggressively advocated for a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq, according to a report Wednesday from the Daily Beast.
Clinton was joined by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and then-CIA Director David Petraeus in pushing President Barack Obama to keep thousands of troops in the country before the U.S. military pulled out in 2011. Clinton was “particularly aggressive,” the Daily Beast reported — citing officials familiar with the negotiations for a status-of-forces agreement with Iraq.
“Hillary Clinton was a lion for keeping troops there,” James Jeffrey, U.S. ambassador to Iraq at the time, told the news outlet. “She was a strong advocate for keeping troops there past 2011.”
It was a point of disagreement between Clinton and the Obama White House, according to the Daily Beast, the latter of which saw pulling troops out of Iraq as the fulfillment of a central campaign promise.
In her recent media appearances, Clinton has said that she was involved in negotiations that included a continued troop presence in Iraq. But she has not portrayed the stance as an area of contention between herself and President Obama. Instead, she placed the blame on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
“We made such an offer to then Prime Minister Maliki. And he would not accept the status of forces agreement,” Clinton said during a CNN town hall interview Tuesday. “We didn’t get that done. And I think, in retrospect, that was a mistake by the Iraqi government.”
See, right there. Another reason I have doubts about supporting Hillary. The same reason I abandoned her campaign back in 2008 for Obama.
In 2011 President Obama was pushing to leave more troops in Iraq too … hence Obama’s effort to get Maliki to sign a new Status of Force agreement to allow for such.
DUH!
This is Daily Beast’s way of trying to ‘create’ news where there is no news.
… and sadly … this is also Dylan Scott’s (of TPM) way of LETTING Daily Beast create news where there is NO NEWS.
THIS. Watch her book tour. Whenever I start to warm up to the idea of her being president, something always snaps me back to reality. She is by nature a hawk. What will happen if the Rand Paul wing of the GOP ascends and we are stuck defending a nominee who will likely get us into another war? This issue is why Obama won over her. She hasn’t changed – and she’s never apologized. It was “bad intelligence.” Yes – bad intelligence accepted because it fit with her own belief system. Terri Gross revealed a fundamental truth about Hillary. Her words are so parsed as to be stripped of any truth. The truth is to be found in what she DOES NOT SAY.
Who do you feel is a viable candidate instead of Hillary?
dems need to get their shit together and start canvassing for another candidate. hillary clinton is not going to be president.