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Clinton, Obama tensions simmer
21/03/2007 11:16 - (SA)
Washington - Dueling Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are veering onto a collision course over Iraq, as the war which ripped schisms in US politics now tears at the 2008 White House race.
As the two senators join their party's bid to crank up political heat on President George W Bush with the conflict grinding into a fifth year, their campaigns are, in the words of one Obama aide, "savaging" each other on the war.
The building confrontation, which has already sparked several rounds of shadow boxing between the rivals, is a sign the war will have a potent impact on early skirmishes of the 2008 presidential campaign.
Clinton, who heads the Democratic pack in opinion polls, has come under pressure from fiercely anti-war Democratic base voters to admit her 2002 Senate vote to authorise war was a mistake.
Obama can press the former first lady on the Iraq vote, as he was a virtual unknown at the time, an Illinois state senator shielded from the supercharged national political atmosphere after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Early on Tuesday, Obama's campaign sent an e-mail to supporters, previewing a new web page, complete with videos, speeches and timelines describing the 45-year-old White House hopeful's opposition to the war.
"Speaking out against this administration's reckless rush to war in Iraq wasn't easy four years ago. Washington didn't go easy on those brave enough to voice their opposition," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe wrote.
"But from the beginning - before George Bush announced the invasion of Iraq four years ago today - Barack Obama consistently opposed this war."
In one of the videos, a public speech in 2002, Obama is shown saying he does not oppose all wars, but thinks one in Iraq would be "dumb." Campaign trail reminders
Plouffe's message did not mention Clinton specifically, but its tone, and Obama's repeated campaign trail reminders that he opposed the war from the start, seems explicitly designed to discomfort her.
The e-mail emerged hours after a reported showdown between top advisers to the two candidates at a Harvard University forum.
Clinton strategist Mark Penn claimed Obama said in 2004 that he was not sure whether he would have voted against the war had he been in the Senate.
He appeared to be referring to a quote in the New York Times on July 26, 2004, before Obama burst onto the US political stage at the Democratic National Convention.
Obama was quoted as saying that he was "not privy to Senate intelligence reports" on Iraq's banned weapons programs that senators, including Clinton, did see.
"What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made."
Obama senior strategist David Axelrod hit back at Penn, saying according to the Washington Post: "Are we going to spend 10 months savaging each other, or are we going to try to lift this country up?"
Monday's spat was not the first time that the campaigns had squared off.
In February, Obama questioned how Clinton would make good on her vow to end the Iraq war if she were the next US president.
On the same day in New Hampshire, Clinton declined to say she had made a mistake with her vote to authorise the invasion of Iraq.
"I think the mistakes were the president's mistakes and I believe he should be held accountable for them."
Last year, Clinton told New York constituents in a letter that she took responsibility for her vote, but blamed the Bush administration for giving "empty assurances" on seeking a diplomatic way out of the crisis.
But she added: "Based on the information that we have today, congress never would have been asked to give the president authority to use force against Iraq."
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