US Democrats differ on way forward in Iraq

Washington, Jun 14: Hillary Rodham Clinton was heckled, John Kerry got multiple standing ovations and the Democratic rift over the way forward in Iraq was on full display at a conference of liberal activists yesterday.

With the war looming over congressional elections in November as well as the 2008 presidential campaign, the two Democratic senators and possible White House contenders took opposing positions on the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

Shouts of ''troops out'' and ''bring them home'' competed with boos when Clinton said she did not think it was ''smart strategy'' to set a date certain for pulling out 130,000 American soldiers.

''I do not agree that it is in the best interest of our troops or our country,'' the New York senator and former first lady told the left-wing gathering sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future.

Clinton devoted only a few minutes of her speech to the divisive issue of Iraq and tried to strike a moderate tone in what she called a sometimes ''difficult conversation.'' Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 presidential nominee, denounced the war as ''immoral'' and a ''quagmire'' founded on a lie. He called President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney ''arm chair warriors whose front line is an air-conditioned conference room.'' Clinton refused to embrace the early troop withdrawal demanded by the Democratic Party's anti-war left and favored by some in Congress, but also said she did not support an open-ended U.S. commitment.

''This new Iraqi government needs to be told they have to take responsibility for their own security and stability, that there must be a plan that will begin to bring our troops home,'' she said.

Kerry, who spoke after Clinton, talked almost exclusively about the war. He conceded his vote for the congressional resolution authorizing it was ''wrong.'' ''We cannot have it both ways,'' he said to shouts of ''tell that to Hillary.'' ''It is not enough to argue with the logistics or to argue about the details or the manner of the conflict's execution,'' the Massachusetts senator said. ''It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake, to say the simple words.'' Rising casualties and falling public support for the war have dragged down Bush's poll numbers and encouraged Democrats to believe they can seize control of Congress from Republicans in mid-term elections later this year.

Iraq, too, is symptomatic of the national security dilemma confronting most Democrats with presidential ambitions disappoint their anti-war base or face Republican charges of being soft on defense.

Republicans, buoyed by recent rare good news, Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad, the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's chief in Iraq, and the filling of two key positions in Iraq's new government plan to tangle with Democrats over the war this week and next in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Kerry said he would offer an amendment to the defense policy bill calling for pulling US forces out of Iraq by the end of 2006.

''The only way forward is political and diplomatic,'' he told the conference. ''I believe we need a hard and fast deadline ...

so that we shift responsibility and demand responsibility from the Iraqis themselves,'' he said to a prolonged standing ovation.

REUTERS