KEY POINTS:
DAVENPORT, Iowa - Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Iowa today President George W. Bush should find a way out of Iraq before he leaves office and called it "the height of irresponsibility" to leave the problem to the next administration.
"The president has said this is going to be left to his successor," the New York senator said during a jammed rally in a fairground exhibit hall in Davenport as she concluded a two-day campaign swing in the state that kicks off the 2008 presidential campaign.
"I think it's the height of irresponsibility and I really resent it," she said. "This was his decision to go to war, he went with an ill-conceived plan, an incompetently executed strategy and we should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office."
Clinton, an opponent of Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq, has been criticised by some Democrats for being slow to turn against the conflict and for her hesitance to renounce her 2002 vote to authorise the Iraq war.
At a news conference before she left the state, she sidestepped a question about why she would not call that vote a mistake, as other candidates have done.
"I regret deeply the way he used that authority," she said of Bush. "It is tragic the mistakes he has made in conceiving this war and executing it, especially the incompetence he has brought to the planning and implementation of his policy."
Clinton also chided journalists for repeatedly bringing up her response to a question at the rally about how she would deal with all the evil male leaders in the world.
"What in my background qualifies me to deal with evil and bad men?" she had asked at the rally, rephrasing the question and then pausing before she and the crowd broke into laughter. She ultimately gave a serious answer about building diplomacy.
Asked several times who she had been thinking about, she first mentioned al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, then Bush administration officials and finally said: "I thought I was funny. You guys keep telling me to lighten up. I get a little funny and now I'm being psychoanalysed."
Told some in the crowd thought she was thinking of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, she shook her head and said: "I don't think anybody in there thought that."
Clinton entered the race last weekend with a burst of publicity and a lead in national opinion polls over a field of seven other Democratic presidential contenders including Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards.
But she must make up ground in Iowa, which she had not visited since November 2003 to avoid speculation about her presidential ambitions. She trails Edwards in polls in Iowa and is running even or slightly behind Obama and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.
Her husband never had to campaign for the Iowa caucuses during his two presidential races. In 1992, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin was running and the other Democrats ceded the state to him. In 1996, Clinton was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
"My participating in the Iowa caucuses is the only thing I'll do in politics that Bill has not done," she told the Davenport crowd.
In Davenport, like Des Moines on Saturday, Clinton ran through a laundry list of policy stands, from support for universal health care coverage to plans for energy independence and making college more affordable.
She also reminded Iowans that New York was more than New York City, and talked about her work on behalf of the small towns and dairy farms of upstate New York.
"I think you'll find a lot in common with the small towns and villages in our state," she said.
- REUTERS
