Obama on Iraq: not one penny for reconstruction!
[what a thug - we fucked up the country, but we don’t owe them
anything - from Ben Smith @ Politico]
In a conference call today (for Iowa and New Hampshire reporters
only, grumble grumble), Obama made the case that he hasn’t moved on
the war.
“Once we were in, we were going to have some responsibility to try to
make it work as best we can. More importantly, you make sure the
troops are supported,” the AP quotes him as saying, echoing a line
he’s been using since soon after he entered the Senate.
But while he’s clearly been a war opponent, it seems equally clear
that during his first year-and-a-half in the Senate he didn’t have
the kind of anti-war fervor he’d displayed either on the campaign
trail, or since he began running for president.
That video is from his November 16, 2003 appearance at the New Trier
Democratic Organization, in which he says that he “unequivocally”
would have voted against the famous $87 billion Iraq appropriation.
(It was provided on the condition of anonymity.)
“Just this week, when I was asked, would I have voted for the $87
billion dollars, I said ‘no.’ I said no unequivocally because, at a
certain point, we have to say no to George Bush. If we keep on
getting steamrolled, we are not going to stand a chance,” he said.
Since he was elected, by my count, he’s voted in favor of five other
appropriations.
An Obama aide sent over a quote from the Hyde Park Citizen that
suggested his opposition to the $87 billion hinged on a distinction
between money for the troops and $20 billion included for
reconstruction, and said the subsequent appropriations he voted for
didn’t include that scale of reconstruction money. (By this argument,
Obama opposes wasting the money on reconstruction, but wants to fund
the military.) That’s a distinction Obama sometimes made in that
campaign, though not during the appearance from which the clip above
was taken.
Here’s one 2003 report:
“Obama said he would put more money toward the troops, but not
rebuilding Iraq. ‘We need to make sure that every dollar that is
spent in Iraq is spent at home,’ he said. ‘We could have had our
allies paying for there building process and contributing to the
troops.’”