Voting for Iraq war 'greatest regret': Hillary Clinton

Washington, Apr 21: Thirteen years after the Iraq war, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton today said that voting in favour of the Arab nation's invasion as the then Senator was her "greatest regret" and a "mistake".

"I guess my greatest regret was voting to give (the then) President (George) Bush authority in Iraq," Clinton told Good Morning America of the ABC News in an interview.

"It did not turn out the way that I had thought it would, based on what he had said. I regret that and I've said that it was a mistake and, obviously, it's something that, you know, I wish hadn't turned out the way it did," Clinton said.

The former First Lady, who was also the former Senator from New York and served as the Secretary of State in the first term of the Obama Administration, is on her way to become the first woman to be nominated as a presidential candidate by a major American party.

During the interview, Clinton said women are still not being treated fairly when it comes to their salaries.

"It's 2016 and we're still facing the reality that women are not paid equally to men," she said.

"This is not just a woman's issue. This is a family issue and an economic issue. If you have a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, you are being cheated, because if you don't get equal pay, then that affects your whole family income," she said and promised to change it if voted to power.

"First and foremost, we should pass the Paycheck Fairness Act which I co-sponsored, sponsored, spoke for all during the time I was in the Senate. We should also work to demand more transparency from businesses, because when they are willing to be transparent, they often find that they have some problems," she said.

Clinton said she is not a natural politician.

"I know I'm not a natural politician and I know that it sometimes is more difficult to navigate through the politics and the campaigning than I wish it were," she said.

"But when I have a job, like being senator from New York, being secretary of state, people really count on me and I do my very best to deliver for them. I ran that hard campaign against Senator Obama. We finished. He turned around. He trusted me enough to be his secretary of state," she asserted.

"I served for eight years as a senator from New York. The people here trusted me. They voted for me twice and then again in the primary. So I think it's a difference between the give-and-take of politics, because, for whatever reason I do attract a lot of attacks - and I understand that - and actually doing the job because, when I'm here today, this is like a giant job interview," she said.

PTI