Hillary was offered a private briefing on Iraq Before her Vote - By an expert and passed [View all]

[Ferd Berfel]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-ritter/hillary-clinton-iraq-war-vote_b_9350340.html

The Meeting That Never Was: One UN Weapons Inspector's Effort to Educate Hillary Before Her Iraq Vote
Scott Ritter

Hillary Clinton was my Senator in 2002, and as a constituent who possessed unmatched qualifications on the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I felt I had a duty to brief her; and as her constituent, she had a responsibility to give me a hearing. But she never did.

America heads to the polls tomorrow as part of "Super Tuesday," and supporters of Hillary Clinton hope they will be able to cement the inevitability of her status as the Democratic Party's nominee for president of the United States with an impressive victory. Politicians like to live in the moment, and Hillary Clinton is no different, cloaking herself in the aura of a woman who is well positioned to make the hard choices of governance based upon her "experience, wisdom, skepticism, and humility." But Hillary's "moment" was shaken to the core by the resignation Sunday -- two days before the "Super Tuesday" contests -- of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran of the Iraq War, from her position as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

Tulsi Gabbard's resignation came at the same time she announced her decision to throw her support behind Hillary Clinton's rival for the Democratic Party nomination, citing "the necessity to have a commander-in-chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment ... who looks at the consequences of the actions they are willing to take before they take those actions so that we don't continue to find ourselves in these failures that have resulted in chaos in the Middle East and so much loss of life." Tulsi Gabbard, in looking toward the future of America post-Barack Obama, has refused to allow the politics of the moment to blind her to the reality of the past, and in doing so has shined a spotlight on an issue Hillary Clinton wishes would go away -- her vote in support of military action against Iraq in 2002.

"I have a much longer history than one vote, which I said was a mistake because of the way that it was done and how the Bush administration handled it," Hillary has said, trying to explain away her actions. The issue at hand, however, isn't simply one vote, but rather the processes behind the casting of that one vote which shed considerable light on the judgement of the individual involved. This isn't the first time I've called out Hillary Clinton on the utter hypocrisy of her vote to authorize military force against Iraq in 2002 -- in early 2007 I wrote a piece for AlterNet that addressed my concerns then, on the eve of her first bid for the Democratic Party nomination.