Democrats Get Combative Over Iraq

June 3, 2007 — -- The Democratic presidential candidates Sunday night differed sharply on issues of national security and the Iraq war, with the initial vote to authorize the war — and last month's vote to provide more war funding — coming into focus in the second Democratic debate of the 2008 campaign.

In a far more combative evening than the campaign's initial debate, former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., said the nation is not safer than it was before Sept. 11, 2001, and chided his opponents — particularly Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. — for not pushing harder to end the war.

"They went quietly to the floor of the Senate, cast the right vote, but there is a difference between leadership and legislating," Edwards said. "Senator Clinton and Senator Obama did not say anything about how they were going to vote until they appeared on the floor of the Senate and voted. They were among the last people to vote."

Obama shot back by suggesting that Edwards is seeking to "play politics" with votes on war funding, and noted that he — alone among the top tier of presidential candidates — opposed the Iraq war before it began.

"I think, John, the fact is that I opposed this war from the start. So, you're about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue," Obama said.

Clinton continued to refuse to apologize for her vote to authorize the war, and said she doesn't regret her decision to not read the National Intelligence Estimate prepared for Congress on Iraq's weapons programs before the vote was authorized.

"I was thoroughly briefed. I knew all the arguments," she said. She also said the U.S. is safer than it was before 9/11 — though "not yet safe enough" — and repeated her refusal to apologize for her vote. "That was a sincere vote," she said.

Clinton also rejected Edwards' contention — repeated three times by the former North Carolina senator — that the "war on terror" is a slogan fit for a "bumper sticker."