Jesse Lee is the Online Rapid Response Manager for the DNC, this is a daily update on the day's messaging.
As the debate tonight approaches with a focus on foreign policy, it is worth comparing the judgment of the two presidential candidates on the preeminent foreign policy issue of our time: Iraq. From the very beginning Barack Obama had the wisdom to oppose the war, and a now-famous speech he gave in October of 2002 reads as one of the most prescient warnings given before President Bush and John McCain pushed the country into war. Read the comparison below, and see that even McCain's 26 years in Washington left him with a chasm between himself and Barack Obama on foreign policy judgment.
War and Politics
Obama, 10/2/02: "What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics."
McCain, 2/5/03: "The Germans had a domestic political situation, which unfortunately the Chancellor took advantage of, and the French seem to go where the oil contracts are. So, we'll see about those two. But I think you'll see significant support from around the world." [Good Morning America-ABC, 2/5/03]
Truth: "It doesn't help that Rove has the habit of fueling speculation that the White House is wagging the dog. In January [of 2002] he suggested that the war on terror created a political advantage because Americans 'trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America.' In June a misplaced diskette containing one of Rove's private PowerPoint presentations included advice to candidates to 'focus on the war' in their fall campaigns. When friends ask whether Bush really plans to invade Iraq, Rove has been known to reply, 'Let me put it this way: If you want to see Baghdad, you'd better visit soon.'"
No Threat from Iraq
Obama, 10/2/02: "Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."
McCain, 2/14/03: "Today, new threats to civilization again defy our imagination in scale and potency. I believe Iraq is a threat of the first order, and only a change of regime will make Iraq a state that does not threaten us and others, and where a liberated people assume the rights and responsibilities of freedom."
Truth: "Britain's former top Iraq expert at the United Nations said in previously secret testimony that most government officials did not believe Iraq posed a threat in the months leading to the U.S.-led invasion, according to a new report. Carne Ross, a former first secretary to the British mission at the U.N. responsible for Iraq policy, told a House of Commons committee that he and other analysts believed that Iraq had only a "very limited" ability to mount an attack of any kind, including one using weapons of mass destruction, or WMD."
The Costs of War
Obama, 10/2/02: "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences."
McCain, 4/9/03: "But it won't be long. It will be a fairly short period of time, but this happens in wars. I'm confident that once they are confident the area is no longer a threat to the Marines and to or army troops that they'll start imposing discipline." [ABC News, "Good Morning America," 4/9/2003]
Truth: "As the Iraq war continues with no clear end in sight, the cost to taxpayers may balloon to $2.7 trillion by the time the conflict comes to an end, according to Congressional testimony."
Recruitment for Al Qaeda
Obama, 10/2/02: "I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."
McCain, 7/10/03: "The Middle East peace process is moving, democracy is moving forward in other nations in the region. There's a whole lot of good things that have been happening because of our victory." [Capital Report, 7/10/03]
Truth: "The same day the President spoke, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies released its annual survey that found, among other things, that far from dealing a blow to al-Qaeda and making the U.S. and its allies safer, the Iraq invasion has in fact substantially strengthened bin Laden's network and increased the danger of attacks in the West. And the London-based IISS is not some Bush-bashing antiwar think tank; it hosted the president's keynote address during his embattled visit to the British late last year."
On Distracting from bin Laden and Afghanistan
Obama, 10/2/02: "So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?"
McCain, 11/5/03: "But I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that -- in the long term, we may muddle through in Afghanistan."
Truth: "Seven years after Sept. 11, 2001, in spite of President Bush's vows, the mastermind of the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil, Osama bin Laden, is still at large and leading a resurgent al Qaeda."
On Allowing Inspections to Work
Obama, 10/2/02: "Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?"
McCain, 2/14/03: "Given this record, containment, deterrence and international inspections will work no better than did the Maginot Line, when it was overrun by another gambler 63 years ago." [Federal News Service, 2/13/03]
Truth: "U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons... The 1991 Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. inspections destroyed Iraq's illicit weapons capability and, for the most part, Saddam Hussein did not try to rebuild it, according to an extensive report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that contradicts nearly every prewar assertion made by top administration officials about Iraq."
On Iraq & Energy Independence
Obama, 10/2/02: "You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."
McCain, 5/2/08: "My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East."
Truth: "Economic expert Linda Bilmes and Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz estimate the direct long-term costs of the Iraq war at over $3 trillion... This staggering sum could have: Paid off 1/3 of the national debt; or Paid not only for our transition to energy independence, but also provided our nation with the most modern and efficient transport, communications and waters systems in the world, while creating literally millions of jobs here at home."