Hillary's Selective Amnesia or Barefaced Lies

Charlotte, NC (TLS). At a campaign stop on Sunday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, claimed that had she known in 2002 what she knows now about Iraq, she never would have voted to authorize the invasion. Obviously in an attempt to placate the rabid anti-war extremists that run the Democrat Party these days, Hillary is either exhibiting a severe case of selective amnesia or she is telling a barefaced lie.

Either way it is not good for the woman who would be President.

Let's take a short trip back to the recent past, shall we? Perhaps Hillary could use a refresher course in the statements of her own husband when he was President, as well as the statements from people within her own party at the time concerning Iraq.

The year was 1998. The day was February 17. The setting was the Pentagon. President Bill Clinton was speaking to a group of Pentagon officials concerning the problem with Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Here is a portion of what Mr. Clinton had to say, which was reported verbatim throughout news media outlets around the world:

'The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.

'Now, against that background, let us remember the past here. It is against that background that we have repeatedly and unambiguously made clear our preference for a diplomatic solution . . .

'But to be a genuine solution, and not simply one that glosses over the remaining problem, a diplomatic solution must include or meet a clear, immutable, reasonable, simple standard.

'Iraq must agree and soon, to free, full, unfettered access to these sites anywhere in the country. There can be no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the inspection system that UNSCOM has put in place.

'Now those terms are nothing more or less than the essence of what he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War. The Security Council, many times since, has reiterated this standard. If he accepts them, force will not be necessary. If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences.

'Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

'And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too. . . .

'If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.

'I am quite confident, from the briefing I have just received from our military leaders, that we can achieve the objective and secure our vital strategic interests.'

What, exactly, does this mean? It means, simply, that then-President Bill Clinton possessed and believed the very same intelligence reports that led President Bush to invade Iraq. Clinton believed Saddam possessed and would use weapons of mass destruction as he had in the past.

Democrats, one by one at the time, fully concurred with Clinton's assessment, though they pretend to have no knowledge of it today. This would include Mr. Clinton's wife Hillary, who is the front-runner for the Democrat nomination for President.

Yet Hillary today claims that if she knew then what she knows now she would not have voted in favor of the War. Does this mean, then, that if she had known in 1998 what she knows now, she would have repudiated the remarks of her own husband, the President, and that of countless other Clinton Administration officials and Democrats in Congress who warned about Saddam Hussein?

The duplicity of Democrats is utterly astounding and sickening. Attempting to play both sides of the game, now that the War has become unpopular they hope Americans forget what they said from the mid-1990s until President Bush was elected. Up until that time, it was DEMOCRATS who sounded the alarm about Iraq. So now, suddenly, they get an attack of selective amnesia, or else they just flat-out lie to the American people.

I dare you to guess which one is the case.

In addition, Mrs. Clinton went further to shoot herself in the foot by claiming that she voted in favor of invading Iraq, 'only if we had allies who were with us.' She then attempted to make the case that we had no allies in the effort.

Here again, perhaps Mrs. Clinton should see a doctor about that memory problem. We had allies. The ones who were not with us were Germany and France. We had Britain, Spain (before they got scared by a terrorist attack), Italy, the Eastern European block, Australia, and South Korea.

Thus, the statement that we had no allies in the effort is a barefaced lie.

Perhaps someone should remind Mrs. Clinton that the historical record is there for all to see. She may try to run from her past statements, but she cannot hide. Neither can her husband or the other Democrats who, at the time, were some of the most vocal proponents of taking action against Saddam Hussein.