Democratic presidential contenders differed over how quickly to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton calling for a phased withdrawal and Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich saying military personnel should get out now.
“I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in,'' Obama, 45, a senator from Illinois, said during a debate tonight, the fourth among the Democratic hopefuls. “We have to begin a phased withdrawal, have our combat troops out by March 31 of next year.''
Richardson, 59, the governor of New Mexico, said all American troops should be brought home by the end of this year. Kucinich, a representative from Ohio who says troops should return to the U.S. immediately, accused fellow Democrats in Congress of playing politics regarding Iraq and repeated his call to stop funding the war.
“The Democrats have failed the American people,'' said Kucinich, 60. After the party gained a congressional majority in the last election “the American people didn't expect us to give them a Democratic version of the war. They expected us to act quickly to end the war.''
Joseph Biden, 64, a senator from Delaware, argued that an immediate withdrawal isn't realistic.
Speed Not Possible
“We can't just pull out now,'' Biden said. “The truth of the matter is: if we started today, it would take one year, one year to get 160,000 troops physically out of Iraq.''
Clinton, who has called for a three-stage plan for getting out of Iraq, said while she is for withdrawing troops as soon as possible, she agrees that a quick pullout isn't possible.
“The best estimate is that we can probably move a brigade a month, if we really accelerate it, maybe a brigade and a half or two a month. That is a lot of months,'' she said.
Clinton said one hurdle is that the Defense Department hasn't answered her questions about whether military officials have done any planning for an eventual withdrawal.
Obama responded that “the time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in.'' He wasn't in the Senate when lawmakers voted to authorize the war and spoke out against it before the 2002 invasion. “That is something that too many of us failed to do,'' he said.
Taken Seriously
When asked whether as a woman she could be taken seriously in talks with Arab nations, Clinton said there was no question.
“I believe that there isn't much doubt in anyone's mind that I can be taken seriously,'' she said. “It would be quite appropriate to have a woman president deal with the Arab and Muslim countries on behalf of the United States.''
The two-hour hour debate held by Cable News Network and Google Inc.'s YouTube video-sharing Web site at the Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, also featured questions on video from citizens about race, same-sex marriage, global warming, health care, taxes and other issues.
One of the sharpest differences among the top three candidates came up with the question of whether to the U.S. should turn to nuclear power plants as an alternative to fossil fuels such as oil and coal.
“I don't favor nuclear power,'' said John Edwards, 54, a former North Carolina senator and the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee. “It's extremely costly. It takes an enormous amount of time to get one planned, developed and built. And we still don't have a safe way to dispose of the nuclear waste.'' Edwards said.
`Energy Mix'
Obama said nuclear power — which emits almost none of the carbon-dioxide pollution that scientists say is causing global warming — should be looked at “as part of the energy mix.'' Clinton took the middle ground, saying she was “agnostic'' about nuclear energy.
“Until we figure out what we're going to do with the waste and the cost, it's very hard to see nuclear as a part of our future,'' Clinton said. “But that's where American technology comes in. Let's figure out what we're going to do about the waste and the cost.''
Richardson and Biden said the No Child Left Behind education law pushed by President George W. Bush was a mistake.
“I would scrap it,'' Richardson said. “It doesn't work.''
Biden, who, like fellow lawmakers Edwards, Clinton, Dodd and Kucinich, voted for No Child Left Behind, said his support was a mistake. “I would fundamentally change the way in which we approach this,'' Biden said.
The program, which had bipartisan support when it was brought before Congress in 2001, requires almost 50 million American public-school children to be tested in reading and math and says that if states want to accept the $37 billion in federal money, they must comply with the law.
Question of Change
One video asked Clinton how she could bring change to the country as she would be following Bush, her husband and the current president's father into the White House if elected.
“Well, I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000,'' she responded.
Clinton said she was proud of her husband's record as president and added: “Any one of us would be a better president than our current president or the future Republican nominee.''
CNN, the cable-television channel owned by Time Warner Inc., touted tonight's event as the first presidential debate featuring questions from people via video. Yet, the practice of people from around the country submitting their inquiries to candidates is nothing new, analysts said.
`Cool Gimmick'
“It's a cool gimmick, but it's not like it will change the way politics is done,'' said Robert Thompson, a media professor and the founder of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
He said having people ask questions from their homes gave a different feel than if they had been in the audience or whether they had tried to articulate the questions in a letter.
“The questions were a lot more aggressive,'' Thompson said.
Clinton, 59, continues to lead the Democratic pack in the polls of Democratic voters. A July 12-15 Gallup Organization survey puts support for the former first lady at 40 percent, followed by Obama at 28 percent and Edwards at 13 percent.
The three also lead in fund raising. Earlier this month, Obama reported having $34 million in cash for the primaries and Clinton reported $33 million. Edwards has $12 million.
