‘What certainly influenced me’ to support Iraq war, Clinton says, was Bush’s billions of aid to NYC

“Part of what certainly influenced me” to support the Iraq war was George Bush pledging billions to rebuild New York after 9/11 a year before her vote, Hillary Clinton said last night. The comment is getting a lot of attention: folks are asking whether Hillary Clinton got bribed to support the Iraq war.

Last night on MSNBC, Chris Matthews quizzed the former secretary of state and NY senator about why she supported the war in Iraq, and Bernie Sanders didn’t. And she said they came to the issue from different perspectives. “Why was Bernie Sanders right and you were wrong?” Matthews asked. “What do you think was in him that allowed him to see what you couldn’t see?” Clinton said:

Clinton: Look, that was a mistake and I’ve said it was a mistake. And I had good friends like Vice President Biden who were with me, and I had good friends who were on the other side. And I think part of what certainly influenced me is after 9/11 you know I went to New York with Chuck Schumer, the next day, my fellow senator. We were the only plane in the sky and we flew over Ground Zero and we saw the devastation, and we were briefed fully on all of the threats that were still out there.

We get back to Washington I go and see then Senator Byrd, get him to commit to helping New York. Because the first request out of the White House was for 20 billion dollars for the Pentagon, for Homeland Security. Not a penny for New York. So I went and said, Look we have to get money for New York.

When I went to the White House, there were about four of us senators, the two from Virginia, the two of us from New York And I knew that the Republicans in the White House and in the Senate didn’t want to rebuild New York or at least they weren’t willing to put money into it. So I’m sitting there in the Oval Office, and Bush says to me, ‘What do you need?’ And I said, ‘I need $20 billion to rebuild, you know, New York,’ and he said, ‘You got it.’ And he was good to his word.

So my experience with him on something of great import to our country was positive. Because literally, that same day, I get back to the Capitol, and the Republicans are trying to take that money away. We kept calling the White House, Bush kept saying, “I gave them my word, I’m going to stick with it.”

So, you know, I had a different set of experiences.

Matthews said, “But you know we have 100,000 people dead in Iraq because of that war. We invaded.” Matthews then quizzed Clinton about why she is so keen on “constantly” knocking off regimes in the Middle East….

Thanks to Adam Horowitz.

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Good for Matthews to ask her why we are constantly knocking off regimes in the ME.

It is time our media (the ones with a spine) asked those who keep wanting wars, or meddling in
the ME, what their ulterior motives are. We have been making a bloody mess over there, and we keep acting indifferent when it comes to the thousands of human lives killed, maimed, or becoming refugees.

To not vote for the Iraq war would not have been seen as leadership and being tough, and Clinton had to make sure she looked that way, as she always had aspirations to run for President.

I am sick of our politicians playing war games with the lives of helpless people, toppling their governments, decimating their countries, and causing havoc in these places. Iraq and Libya were much better off before the zionists and neocons in the US, decided to drop bombs over more Muslim nations. Clinton played a huge part in this mess too.

Hillary is either stupidly evil or evilly stupid. Either way, she should not be running the U.S.

This woman is truly a psychopath. She recently commented that “We didn’t lose a single person” in Libya.” Absolutely obscene, considering it was U.S. imperial machinations (with Clinton as puppet master) which fomented the civil war there, and U.S. actions which completely destroyed that country killing untold thousands. And now we’re headed for more death and destruction there under Clinton’s guidance.

When she becomes President (sorry Sanders’ hopefuls) there will be carnage worldwide that will make Obama’s reign of terror seem like child’s play.

Tangential point, but that 100,000 figure is much too low. Even Iraq Body Count says the civilian death toll is over 150,000 and now that they’ve started including combatants, they say the total is currently 240,000. And the attempts at measuring excess deaths via surveys by various groups give totals which were much higher than IBC”s for the times covered.

Plus ISIS is in part a product of the Iraq War.

https://www.iraqbodycount.org

What an insightful incident! “I made a deal with Bush. NY got $20B to rebuild [from the blowback fiasco caused by the first Gulf War (bin Laden’s stated grudge was infidel US forces defiling sacred Saudi Arabia land)]. So I voted with Bush for the fiasco that created the blowback known by 3 or 4 names – ISIL, Daesh, etc.. Trust me to be President, because I do big deals starting wars and throwing billions in taxpayer dollars around with all the elite players – unlike Bernie [and I don’t even see why this story might be a problem for me.]