Informal Clinton adviser and retired four-star general Jack Keane on Hillary Clinton’s Iraq plans:
“I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January ’09 she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made.”
Recently deposed Obama adviser and respected academic Samantha Power on Barack Obama’s Iraq plans:
“You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009. He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan — an operational plan — that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn’t have daily access now, as a result of not being the president… [His stated plan is] a best-case scenario.”
I actually don’t have a problem with what these advisers are saying: Clinton and Obama will take the information they have available to them as president and reevaluate their plans for withdrawal. That makes sense to me. But for many Democrats, getting out of Iraq is the number one issue and the fact that the candidates have told them what they want to hear, while possibly holding more nuanced positions in secret, will raise some justifiable anger.
