The New Republic

Yesterday at the Take Back America conference Bill Richardson attacked his Democratic primary opponents for supporting recent legislation on Iraq. Said Richardson:

With all due respect to my Democratic colleagues ... Senators Clinton, Obama, Dodd, and Biden all voted for timeline legislation that had deliberate loopholes. Those loopholes allow this president, or any president, to leave an undetermined number of troops in Iraq indefinitely.

And this is the same legislation that former Senator Edwards says we should send back to President Bush over and over again until he signs it.

The language in the legislation was clear. It would allow the president to leave American troops behind for quote "training and equipping members of the Iraqi Security Forces" ... and to protect, among other things, quote "other U.S. forces."

Troops protecting troops ... potentially thousands of troops, year after year. I don't know about the other folks running, but troops protecting troops training other troops doesn't sound any different to me.

Clearly, my Democratic colleagues in this campaign think it's responsible to have an ongoing military role in Iraq. They voted not once but twice to leave troops behind.

What is the nefarious legislation Richardson's opponents supported? The text of Richardson's speech includes a footnote pointing to two bills: the version of the Iraq supplemental that would have required Bush to begin withdrawing troops, and the Feingold-Reid amendment, which would have cut off funds for the war next March.

Since Richardson argued today that the difference between him and his opponents on these two bills is a fundamental dividing line in the campaign, it's only fair to ask what Richardson said about the bills when they were moving through Congress.

The supplemental passed the Senate on March 29, 2007. On the evening of March 26, Alicia Menendez of RNN-TV asked Richardson how he would vote on the legislation if he were in the Senate. The governor responded, "I'm just not familiar with the supplemental. Which one is that?"

OK, fine. So Richardson didn't know about the most important piece of legislation concerning the most important issue in America. He does now, and he thinks it was a bad bill.

But what about Feingold-Reid? Well, it turns out Richardson did know about that one. In fact, he knew about it well enough to include it as a pillar of his 7-part plan for Iraq. Here's an excerpt from the page on Richardson's Web site describing his Iraq plan, or at least what the page looked like back on May 12, according to a cached version captured by a rival campaign:

Bill Richardson's 7 Point New Realism Plan for Iraq:

1. Troops Out in 2007: We should get our troops out of Iraq this year. Our continued presence there only enables the Iraqi factions to delay making the hard political choices they need to make to end the civil war.

2. No Residual Forces Left Behind: We must remove ALL of our troops. There should be no residual US forces left in Iraq. Most Iraqis, and most others in the region, believe that we are there for their oil, and this perception is exploited by both Al Qaeda, other insurgents, and anti-American Shia groups. By announcing that we intend to remove all troops, we would deprive them of this propaganda tool.

3. Congressional De-Authorization of War: President Bush has demonstrated neither competence nor honesty nor a sense of reality in his conduct of this war. I support the Feingold-Reid bill to force the President to end the war. [Emphasis added.]

Congress must continue to use the power of the purse without cutting funds for troops on the ground, but we should also go one step further. Congress should assert its constitutional authority and pass a resolution de-authorizing the war under the War Powers Act. Congress can then set a military pull-out date and appropriate funds accordingly for the re-deployment of troops.

That was then. Here's what the page detailing Richardson's Iraq plan looks like today, after being scrubbed of any references to Richardson's support for Feingold-Reid:

Bill Richardson's 7 Point New Realism Plan for Iraq:

1. De-Authorize the Iraq War: President Bush has demonstrated neither competence, honesty, nor a sense of reality in his conduct of this war. Congress should assert its constitutional authority and pass a resolution de-authorizing the war under the War Powers Act and Article One of the United States Constitution.

2. Remove Our Troops in 2007: Congress should set a military withdrawal date by the end of 2007 and appropriate funds accordingly for the re-deployment of troops.

3. No Residual Forces Left Behind: We must remove ALL of our troops. There should be no residual U.S. forces left in Iraq. Most Iraqis, and most others in the region, believe that we are there for the Iraqi's oil. This perception is exploited by Al Qaeda, other insurgents, and anti-American Shia groups. By announcing that we intend to remove ALL troops, we would deprive our enemies of this propaganda tool.

Note to the Richardson campaign: if you are going to change your position on Iraq and then rid your Web site of all evidence that you ever held that position, you'll want to take down every incriminating example. You missed this one, which is buried in a press release still live at richardsonforpresident.com:

3. Congressional De-Authorization of War: President Bush has demonstrated neither competence nor honesty nor a sense of reality in his conduct of this war. I support the Feingold-Reid bill to force the President to end the war.[Emphasis added.]

Also, you'll want to let this pro-Richardson blogger know about the change in policy. He still has the old, pro-Feingold-Reid plan posted.

--Ryan Lizza

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