Clinton gets heat on Iraq from voters, Obama

KEENE, N.H. -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton faced critical questions yesterday about her position on the war in Iraq from New Hampshire voters and a Democratic rival for the presidential nomination.

During an Iowa campaign swing, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois pressed the New York lawmaker to explain how she would take the United States out of Iraq and why she has not renounced her vote authorizing force.

Clinton has repeatedly said that if she knew in 2002 what she knows now about the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, she would not have voted to authorize military action.

But Obama took a veiled shot at Clinton, saying he was "not clear" on how she would end the war, and suggesting that Clinton and others made the wrong decision to authorize force despite the flawed intelligence they were given by the Bush administration.

"Even at the time, it was possible to make judgments that this would not work out well," Obama told reporters in Ames on his first full day of campaigning since formally announcing his entry into the presidential race on Saturday.

While Obama did not mention any candidate by name, his comments appeared aimed at Clinton and former North Carolina senator John Edwards.

Edwards has since said he regretted his vote, but Clinton has declined to do so, a stance that has drawn questions or protests at every public campaign appearance she made during her two-day campaign visit to the Granite State.

"It doesn't fly. It just doesn't fly. I just want to be honest with you," said a Democratic voter at a Nashua house party where Clinton was seeking votes on her first visit to the state since she announced her candidacy.

Asked to call her vote a mistake, Clinton refused. "I don't agree with that," she said. "I think the mistakes were the president's mistakes, and I believe he should be held accountable for them."

In Iowa yesterday, Obama told voters he has proposed legislation that would force the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq by March 2008.

"I don't think there is a more significant set of decisions than the decision to go to war," he said. "I think the war was a tragic mistake, and it never should have been authorized."

Obama plans to travel today to New Hampshire, the state that holds the nation's first primary.

Clinton appeared to be making progress in re introducing herself to voters whose image of her has been shaped by memories of the tumult in her marriage and her inability to get healthcare reform approved in the 1990s.

At small house parties in Manchester and Nashua, voters said they were impressed with Clinton's command of the issues and her ease in answering questions.

Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, entered the Manchester event skeptically, saying Clinton "is still a very polarizing figure to a lot of people" and therefore might not be the strongest candidate the Democrats could offer .

But after hearing Clinton take questions on education, the war, and healthcare, LeBlanc said he agreed with her.

Many voters said they saw a side of Clinton they had not known -- a confident woman who was easy to talk to and answered questions honestly. "I was really impressed. She's very genuine," said Judy Rubin, 49, a teacher who attended the crowded town meeting in Keene.

But the war continued to mar Clinton's otherwise smooth first foray into New Hampshire as a presidential contender.

In Keene, she was greeted by a small group of protesters who held signs warning about the "First Female War President," and calling for a stronger antiwar position.

"I was disappointed in her," Cheryl Quimby, 48, said after watching the senator. While Quimby said she was glad to see a woman running for the White House, "on the war, she's kind of gone along with it all along."

Clinton repeated that she was given wrong information before the war and would end it if she became president. "I'm sorry. What I say is what I believe," she said in Nashua. "I understand that some people may not agree, or think that it's inadequate, but that's what I believe."