Clinton and Obama Continue to Vote for War Funding

Kucinich for President 2008
http://www.kucinich.us

Kucinich Says Clinton and Obama Continue to Vote for War Funding,
They and Edwards Refuse to Oppose a Bush-Cheney Attack on Iran

NEW YORK CITY (April 16, 2007) MONDAY - Congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is challenging his fellow candidates' votes to authorize and fund the war in Iraq, and their positions on Iran.

"Clinton, Edwards, and Obama share responsibility for wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in an unnecessary war. And the American tax payers on this day need to remember that," Kucinich charged. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards voted to authorize the war. Clinton and Barack Obama continue to vote to fund it.

At a New Hampshire town meeting yesterday, someone asked Clinton about her vote to authorize the war, and asked if she had read the intelligence reports prior to her vote. Senator Clinton is reported to have said that if she had known then what she knows now, she never would have voted to give the President the authority to go to war.

"If Senator Clinton and the others had done their job they would have known, and they would have voted correctly as I did," declared Kucinich, who campaigned yesterday in New Hampshire and Connecticut and appeared live on CNN's night show from New York City.

"I didn't just vote against the war, I shared an in depth analysis with Members of Congress that I wrote in October 2002, after reviewing intelligence reports," Kucinich said.

Kucinich's 2002 Analysis:
http://kucinich.us/files/pdfs/Oct2002Analysis.pdf

"The information that Senator Clinton said she was lacking was available to anyone who wanted to see it," said Kucinich who ran 7 points ahead of Clinton in the Moveon poll released last week. http://tinyurl.com/24x6w8 "Now that she and all the others who voted incorrectly know what they didn't know then, they are still voting the wrong way," Kucinich stated, referring to votes on war funding.

Kucinich also talked about Senator Obama's presidential campaign, where Senator Obama claims to have opposed the war from the start and implies that if he had been in the Senate at the time he would have voted against it. "Senator Obama has a 100 percent record of voting for funding the war in Iraq, as does Senator Clinton," Kucinich said.

Last month, in under a week, the Democrats appropriated $97 billion in supplemental funds for the war and approved the 2008 Bush budget, which not only budgeted $145 billion for the war in 2008, but allocated an additional $50 billion for 2009.

"So much for Democratic timelines," Kucinich observed. "This war needs to end now and Democrats should stop funding it now. The money's in the pipeline now to bring the troops home, and I've written legislation, HR 1234, to begin a process to stabilize Iraq as the U.S. troops leave."

HR 1234: http://kucinich.us/iraqplan

Kucinich challenged his fellow candidates on Iran as well, saying: "All of them, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama, who now say that President Bush was wrong to attack Iraq, are parroting the Bush-Cheney doctrine on preemptive and 'preventive' war on Iran, as they openly state that for Iran 'All options are on the table.'"

Kucinich, the only candidate who has consistently voted against the invasion of Iraq and the funding of the occupation, noted: "Their lack of good judgment raises questions not only about their ability to win in November of 2008, but also raises questions as to whether they have the good judgment, foresight and independence necessary to be President of the United States".

ENDS

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