Clinton: Bring (Some) Troops Home
Looks like Hillary Clinton’s plan for withdrawing American troops from Iraq comes with a caveat. Clinton says that, if she becomes commander in chief, she would maintain a whittled-down U.S. military presence in Iraq — a strategy she believes would jibe with the Democrats’ proposed resolution to bring our forces home by March 31, 2008.
The candidate’s statement fulfills the prediction made by Pentagon insider Karen Kwiatkowski in the Truthdig interview:
“Yeah, we are not leaving these bases, and a Democratic president, I don’t care who they are, will keep those bases there. They will justify them and they will use them and we love that.”
Barack Obama has also said he would leave a smaller force in Iraq.
New York Times:
She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.
The United States’ security would be undermined if parts of Iraq turned into a failed state “that serves as a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda,” she said. “It is right in the heart of the oil region,” she said. “It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel’s interests.”