Clinton refuses to say Iraq vote was "a mistake"

BERLIN, N.H. — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., faced tough questions over her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq during a town-hall gathering Saturday in Berlin.

The response to Clinton's visit to New Hampshire, her first since 1996, was typified by Roger Tilton.

Tilton, a financial consultant from Nashua who had risen at 4 a.m. to drive to the meeting, asked Clinton to say plainly and "without nuance" that her Senate vote to authorize force in Iraq in 2002 was "a mistake."

"Until we hear you say that, we're not going to hear all these other great things you've said," Tilton said.

She refused, saying she would never have cast the vote if she had had the intelligence information in 2002 that she had now. "I've taken responsibility for my vote," Clinton said. "The mistakes were made by this president."

Tilton was unmoved. "Until she says it was a mistake, she won't get my vote," he insisted.

The exchange highlighted the challenge Clinton faces in her candidacy for president. She must convince Democratic primary voters, who tend to be strongly opposed to the war in Iraq, that her pragmatic approach to ending the conflict is the right one.

Complicating that task is that her two main rivals for the Democratic nomination — Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina — have spoken out stridently against the war.

Earlier, Clinton told the crowd, "If I had been president in 2003, I never would have started this war, and if it is not ended when I'm president in 2009, I will end it."

She answered questions on the rising cost of college tuition, immigration and the situation in Darfur. On health-care overhaul, which Clinton failed to tackle successfully as first lady, she was unbowed about the need to expand coverage.

"I am going to be right back up on that horse of universal health-care coverage, and we are going to ride," she said.

Hundreds packed the Berlin City Hall for the chance to see and hear her; thousands more later lined the wooden bleachers at Concord High School in the state Capitol.

There was considerable curiosity about how she would handle the back-and-forth repartee on which New Hampshire voters pride themselves.

"I'd like to like her," said Nathaniel Gurien of North Conway. "Now that she is running, she has to show us what she's made of."

Clinton tailored some of her remarks to the economic struggles of Berlin, a city of about 8,000 that has been shedding jobs from its pulp and paper mills.

"I think there is a great opportunity for using wood for a fuel of the future, just like it was a fuel of the past," she said. "If we can provide the right incentives, and we can give people the extra help we need by tax incentives and other ways of creating new jobs, we can begin to do this."

Clinton's husband, former President Clinton, didn't accompany her, but she tried to turn his popularity in New Hampshire to her advantage at several points, referring to "Bill" as she answered a question about health-care costs.

"It's great having a full-time political counselor," she said.

"Probably the only thing that I'll try to do differently from my husband is not so many Dunkin' Donuts stops," Clinton said, evoking the lore of Clinton's snacking habits during the 1992 presidential campaign. "I honestly think Bill gained about 20 pounds in the New Hampshire primary, and I cannot afford that."

Material from The New York Times

is included in this report.