Clinton urges conditions on U.S. funding for Iraq
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the United States should cut funding for Iraq and its military if Iraq's leaders fail to give the minority Sunnis a greater role in government. Clinton, a potential Democratic presidential candidate, also said she opposed President George W. Bush's plan to add 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq, in part because it would siphon off U.S. military strength from Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents have been intensifying their attacks. "He's taking troops away from Afghanistan, where I think we need to be putting more troops, and sending them to Iraq on a mission that I think has a very limited, if any, chance for success," the New York senator said on NBC's "Today" show. Clinton, who visited Baghdad and Kabul last week, said previous attempts to cajole Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim leaders to compromise with the Sunni Muslims have failed. "I don't think we should continue to fund the protection for the Iraqi government leaders, or for the training and equipping of their army, unless they meet certain conditions, including making the political compromises that have been called for now for more than two years," she said. U.S. officials, lawmakers and experts have urged Iraq's Shi'ite-led government to change the constitution to allow greater political participation by Sunnis. They fault Shi'ite leaders for moving too slowly toward this goal. The idea of making U.S. support for Iraq conditional on its reaching certain benchmarks was also raised by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton. Clinton and other lawmakers who accompanied her to Baghdad were to discuss their trip with reporters later on Wednesday. If she decides to join the presidential race as expected, Clinton would be an early front-runner for the Democratic nomination along with Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who announced his candidacy on Tuesday. Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress are expected to seek votes on non-binding resolutions to disapprove of the Bush plan to send more troops to Iraq. Although Clinton voted to back the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, she said she now favors limiting the number of American troops in Iraq and beginning to move them out of Baghdad and eventually out of the country entirely. She said she sent a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging him not to cut the number of troops in the eastern part of Afghanistan and to beef up the U.S. military presence in southern Afghanistan.
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