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Sen. Clinton says immediate withdrawal would be mistake


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Sen. Clinton says immediate withdrawal would be mistake

 

By JIM FITZGERALD

Associated Press Writer

 

November 21, 2005, 6:11 PM EST

 

RYE BROOK, N.Y. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be "a big mistake."

 

While professing "the greatest respect" for Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ex-Marine who called for a troop pullout last week, Clinton said, "I think that would cause more problems for us in America."

 

On the other hand, she said, the administration's pledge to stay in Iraq "until the job is done" amounts to giving the Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves."

 

The right approach, Clinton suggested, would be for the U.S. to await Iraq's Dec. 15 elections for a clue about how soon the Iraqis can take over.

 

"Until they vote for a government I don't know that we will have adequate information about how prepared they are," she said. "Then we have to tell the new government, `We're not going to be here forever, we are going to be withdrawing our young men and women and we expect you to start moving toward stability.' ... They have to know we're not going to be there forever."

 

"Right now Iraq is tottering on the balance," Clinton said. "It will matter to us if Iraq totally collapses into civil war, if it becomes a failed state the way Afghanistan was, where terrorists are free to basically set up camp and launch attacks against us."

 

Clinton, a Democrat who is running for re-election to the Senate and is viewed as a possible presidential candidate in 2008, managed a few swipes at President Bush while saying, "This is not to me a partisan political debate."

 

"I think we have to face up to the problems that we're confronting because of poor decision making by the administration," the senator said. "But this is our president for the next three years. My view is we have to work together to fix these problems."

 

"None of us wants to see a failure in Iraq," she added. "That is too dangerous for America. So we have to try to make this as successful as possible, having already recognized the numerous mistakes that were made by the administration. We are where we are. Let's try to make it as successful as we can. Let's protect our young men and women, bring them home with honor as soon and as quickly as possible."

 

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said Monday: "Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war ... but members of Congress saw the same intelligence and reached the same conclusions about going into Iraq."

 

 

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

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