A detailed examination traces Hillary Clinton's shift from hawk to dove over the US invasion of Iraq - showing how hard it will be for her to escape the stigma of her original support for the war.
In October 2002 Clinton voted for the US senate resolution granting George Bush the power to declare war on Iraq, a decision Clinton robustly defended, arguing that Saddam Hussain was a dangerous tyrant who possessed weapons of mass destruction, as well as suggesting a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussain. But as US occupation forces struggled and the war became increasingly unpopular at home, so Clinton sought to distance herself from that decision - according to a new biography of Clinton to be published next week, Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
An extract from the book published in the New York Times charts Clinton's subtle changes from backing for the war in 2003 to her attempt earlier this year to "deauthorise" the 2002 vote, and details the elisions and recalibrations the senator from New York has undergone over Iraq.
It's a long piece but a must-read for anyone interested in current US politics, given the outcome of the presidential election in 2008 could hinge on decisions taken five years ago. One issue in the extract, Clinton's decision not to read the detailed national intelligence estimate on Iraq, was a major talking point in the latest debate between the Democratic candidates.
A vintage glimpse of Hillary Clinton's pre-war position can be seen on this video footage of the senator addressing a delegation from Code Pink, the anti-war women activists. In it Clinton comes across as responsive but unyielding in her view that backing the war was right and that Saddam had biological and chemical weapons, even claiming that Saddam had "an obsession with weapons of mass destruction". Had she read the national intelligent estimate, as some of her senate colleagues did and urged other Democrats to do, then she may have not been so forthright.
