Iraq testimony ignites new White House campaign spats

WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton hit out at Democratic White House rival Barack Obama over Iraq Wednesday, as a report by war commander General David Petraeus ignited new campaign brush fires. The New York senator questioned whether Obama could live up to his pledge to bring US troops home, lashed out at Republican presumptive nominee John McCain, a war supporter, and also criticized President George W. Bush.

"I call on the president to answer the question that General Petraeus did not," Clinton said, while campaigning in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, as the general endured a second long day of testimony to Congress in Washington.

"What is our end game in Iraq given the failure of the surge to achieve the objective that the president outlined for it?

"Second, I call on President Bush to pledge to the American people ... that the United States Congress will have the chance to review and vote on any long-term security agreement he has negotiated with the Iraqis."

Clinton, who has vowed to start bringing US troops home if she is elected president, spoke a day after grilling Petraeus in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, and a day before Bush is due to make a statement on Iraq.

She argued that Obama's vows to start bringing US troops home amounted to "just words."

"You can count on me to end the war safely and responsibly," she said while campaigning in Pennsylvania, which holds its Democratic primary on April 22.

"One candidate will continue the war and (keep) troops in Iraq indefinitely, one candidate only says he'll end the war and one candidate is ready, willing and able to end the war and to rebuild our military while honoring our soldiers and our veterans," Clinton was quoted as saying by MSNBC.

Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan condemned her "tired and discredited" attack. "We're happy to have a debate with Hillary Clinton over who the American people trust to end this war, since Barack Obama is the only candidate who had the judgment to oppose the war from the very beginning, not just from the beginning of a campaign for president," he said.

Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start, though he was not in the Senate in 2002 when Clinton voted to authorize the war.

McCain, meanwhile, rejected Obama's suggestion to Petraeus that the United States should talk to its sworn foe Iran over stabilizing Iraq, as part of a regional "diplomatic" surge.

"I do not think that it would be helpful in any way to enhance the prestige of people like that," McCain told Fox News.

Obama, a freshman Illinois senator, said Tuesday that a "diplomatic surge" was needed to stabilize Iraq "that includes Iran."

"Because if (Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki) can tolerate normal neighbor-to-neighbor relations in Iran, then we should be talking to them as well," Obama said in a crucial Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

"I do not believe we're going to be able to stabilize the situation without them."