Sen. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic front runner for president, got bust by a woman in a New Hampshire audience for not reading the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report.
The exchange went like this:
After fielding many questions ranging from mental health care to veteran affairs at a Town Hall Meeting in Hampton, NH, Sen. Hillary Clinton received a heated question about Iraq. A woman had traveled from New York to ask Sen. Clinton if she had read the report given to her in 2002 on intelligence and the Iraq war [a reference to the NIE].
Clinton said she had been briefed on the report, and the woman screamed back, “Did you read it?” Notably uncomfortable, the Sen. Clinton repeated that she had been briefed. This exchange went back and forth about three times.
The woman sat down and Sen. Clinton lapsed into campaign mode and said, “If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority.”
While there’s no question that a U.S. senator has a tremendous amount to read and keep up with, what’s critically important here is, the National Intelligence Estimate is the Holy Grail of the Iraq war. Contained in its pages is the very foundation for Bush’s justification to invade Iraq: weapons of mass destruction.
Sen. Hillary Clinton was forced to admit she didn’t bother to read the report, instead she was “briefed” on its contents.
From the Left 
The Hillary monster was a Reagan Republican in college so I’m not the least surprised to see her wield her senate power to help George Bush expand his dreams of a Middle East empire awash with oil.
We desperately need new leadership in the country to take on the complexities facing us in the 21st century: the rise of anti-western radical Islam, emerging new diseases like Avian flu, a lack of a manufacturing base, spiraling debt, and new entries into the nuclear club of nations.
If you want the staus quo, then Hillary Clinton is your candidate. However, if you want this country to step off the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton merry go round, the you must reject Hillary Clinton and look beyond her to honest candidates able to take on and solve the problems that lie ahead and who embrace real Democratic principles.
Amazing thread, Christopher. I can see a senator being briefed by staffers on the need to expand an airport or fish depletion in a river but when it comes to starting a war, I would want to read every report I could get my hands on and not leave something so important to a staffer to brief me.
Makes perfect sense why Hillary has stumbled so badly when it comes to defending her vote to give Bush authority to go to war. She didn’t know what she was getting the country into to start with and now she sounds like she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. Hence all the slippery parsing. I bet she still hasn’t bothered to read the NIE.
Hillary Clinton = Republican-lite. She’s Bush in a pantsuit.
Every senator who gave Bush this authority has the blood of the 3,302 Americans who have been killed in Iraq under their fingernails. No exceptions. I can’t support anyone who helped enable this president to start a war.
I just can’t understand not taking the time and the interest to read something as important as this. I mean, isn’t this the job of an elected lawmaker or am I missing the point? This isn’t only lazy on Hillary’s part, it’s irresponsible.
Meanwhile, four year after the vote to go to war, we have this:
Sunday: 5 GIs, 109 Iraqis Killed; 173 Iraqis Wounded; 2 Britons Killed as Copters Collide
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=10819
A second day of heavy violence gripped Iraq. At least 109 Iraqis were killed or found dead today and another 173 were wounded in attacks. Another 36 people were kidnapped in three separate events.
Also, military sources reported the deaths of five U.S. and two British servicemembers in separate incidents. The Britons died in a helicopter crash
I’d bet you $100 dollars that while Hillary didn’t bother to read the NIH, choosing instead to be briefed on it, she DID read her fundraisng reports during the same period.
After all, her senate career was ALWAYS a stepping stone to bigger fish. Like running for president so she could extract revenge on those who went after her husband all those years.
Let’s get one thing perfect straight: Sen. Clinton knew exactly what she was voting for when she gave President Bush carte blanche to start a war. The woman isn’t a child, she’s not uneducated and she’s been kicking around Washington for 20 years. In fact, all of the senators who ceded their oversight power to Bush and his team of neocons knew what they were doing. Four years later and more than 3,300 dead, I hope they’re happy.
“I hope they’re happy. – mbmdl”
“They” don’t care. That is the problem with the Congress. What they care about is getting reelected.
Term limits, publically funded elections and abolishment of the Electoral College.
No lobbyists, no PACS, no corporate sponsors, NO LAWYERS!
Yeah, it makes sense for Hillary & others to rely on the warmongers to brief them over something as important as the document was!
An interesting tidbit: the democrats in the Senate at the time who were part of the Senate Intelligence Committee at that time, did not vote for the Iraq resolution. Why? Because they knew in an instant that the documents provided as ‘proof’ were forgeries.
Makes you wonder who briefed Hillary. Interesting….
All the senators who voted to authorize Bush’s war should be ashamed of themselves, including Hillary Clinton, who refuses to apologize for her vote because she fears it will cost her conservative support that isn’t there to start with.
Tom339 is so right. Hillary grew up in a conservative Republican home and those roots aren’t going to die easily, if ever. She’s never been what I call a true liberal or a true progressive. She seems to have been dragged kicking and screaming to the Democrats table by virtue of marrying Bill Clinton.
I’d say that, even if Hillary had read the NIE her vote would have remained the same. Assuming that she had hired competent staff, I can only assume that the briefing they gave her included a warning that the intelligence on which Potomac Pinocchio based the war was shaky at best. Her vote did not reflect the ignorance she claimed. Knowing that she would be seeking the Presidency in 2008, she feared appearing soft and feminine.
Unbelievable. All those lives wasted because Hillary, like so many of the other Democrats, didn’t bother to read the fine print.
Uh Jim? And the republicans too. Don’t forget that.