Obama, Clinton Tackle Iraq On Iowa Stump

Presidential contender Barack Obama on Tuesday dismissed his Democratic rivals' change of heart on the Iraq war as too little too late, while Hillary Rodham Clinton urged a quick end to U.S. involvement in the conflict.

Obama, an Illinois senator, and Clinton, a New York senator, focused on the nearly 4 1/2 year war in dueling speeches only a few city blocks apart in Iowa, where the first Democratic votes to decide the party's 2008 presidential nominee will be held.

The U.S. Senate will vote in the coming days on proposals for a withdrawal from Iraq, where the conflict has claimed more than 3,600 American lives.

"Being a leader means that you'd better do what's right and leave the politics aside because there are no do-overs on an issue as important as war," Obama said, adding that the Iraq war should never have been authorized or waged.

Obama, then a state lawmaker in Illinois, opposed the war from the start. Clinton voted in 2002 to give President George W. Bush the authority to launch the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, but has said she would have opposed the war if she knew then what she knows now.

"Our message to the president is clear," Clinton told a crowd of about 250. "It is time to begin ending this war — not next year, not next month — but today."

Throughout the campaign, the two — who have raised more money than their rivals and rank high in most opinion polls — have debated the nuances of their opposition to the war.

Clinton and Obama are both sponsoring Iraq-related amendments to the defense bill being considered by the U.S. Senate this week. Two other Democrats with White House ambitions — Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut — are sponsoring proposals as well.

Clinton, along with West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, will introduce an amendment to repeal congressional authorization for the war. It would require Bush to seek new authority from the U.S. Congress to extend the conflict beyond Oct. 11, 2007, five years after the original permission was given.

Obama is taking the lead on amendments that would boost funding for mental health services for veterans and require better government oversight of military contractors.

Most Democrats are expected to support an amendment that would require combat troops to begin redeployment from Iraq within 120 days of enactment.

Dodd wants to take matters a step further: He will introduce an amendment that would require troops to be withdrawn immediately and end funding for all combat operations by March 31, 2008.

Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, is sponsoring an amendment to increase funding for mine-resistant vehicles for Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also continuing to push a plan to partition Iraq along ethnic lines.

And, in a direct challenge to his Democratic rivals, former North Carolina senator John Edwards called on Americans "to let Congress know that we expect them to act decisively to end the war in Iraq.

"Congress should no longer facilitate the President's stubborn allegiance to his failed strategy," Edwards said in a statement. "The one way to support our troops and bring them home is for Congress to exercise its constitutionally mandated funding power, force an immediate drawdown of 40,000 to 50,000 troops and require withdrawal of all troops within about a year."

On the Republican side, John McCain continued to side with Bush. Speaking on the Senate floor, the Arizona lawmaker defended the troop buildup in Iraq and contended that reinforcements had only just been put in place. He made his sixth trip to Iraq last week.

"Make no mistake. Violence in Baghdad remains at unacceptably high levels," but the United States and Iraq seem to be "moving in the right direction," McCain said. "The progress our military has made should encourage us."