Do Clark and Kerry have the same position on Iraq?

It sure seems to me that they do. They were both in favor of (1) going to the UN (2) getting REAL multilateral cooperation (3) not rushing to war unless the threat proved imminent.

The question "Did you support the war?" is way too simplistic. The answer really should be that it's not that simple. There was a right and a wrong way to conduct the entire affair, and Bush did it wrong. However, a LEGITIMATE president would have used the authorization for force to compell cooperation from Iraq and get support from the UN. Bush did neither.

The Bush folks also did literally no realistic planning for the aftermath. Both men, and many others, have pointed this out.

Is the only difference between them that Kerry had to cast a vote?

B-)

http://armedservices.house.gov/openingstatementsandpressreleases/107thcongress/02-09-26clark.html

STATEMENT OF
GENERAL (RETIRED) WESLEY K. CLARK
U.S. ARMY


BEFORE THE
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


SEPTEMBER 26, 2002

If only we didn't have a president with a ten-year old's mentality, we could have been in a much better position.

Oh, yeah, I forgot, we had to go in so that we wouldn't be stuck in there during the summer.

That's his position too. It's all the candidates' position except Kucinich, Sharpton & Braun.

He certianly spoke out against it. But you're right that his retoric at the time seemd to indicate that he would have supported the war if there was proof of an iminant threat. I think there was a spectrum of war support from Bush's pushing hard for a war, through Lieberman's hoping, to the Kerry/Clark (and some of the others who voted for the resolution) position that we should use diplomacy on the international front, but still go in, through the people like Dean (and myself) who could imagine a sinario where we would want to go in but clearly saw that this didn't aproach it and at the far end people like Braun, Sharpton and DK who were opposed to a war in pretty much any case. Now that's a run on sentence, but I don't feel like fixing it.

Dean supported this war exactly, precisely the way every other Democrat did. Save people like Lieberman who were and still are right behind Bush. He said he'd like to work with the UN and would support them giving Saddam 30 - 60 days to disarm and then go in. He ddin't just say imminent threat, he also said enforcing UN resolutions. And you know what? Protecting US security or enforcing UN resolutions are the ONLY two circumstances Bush was authorized to use force. The second he uttered the words 'Iraqi Freedom', he wasn't acting within the Authorization anyway.