Dems say they can’t promise troop pullout

Health care figured
prominently in the debate.

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) — The leading Democratic presidential hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2013, the end of the next president’s first term.

“I think it’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation’s first primary state.

“It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

“I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Sensing an opening, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson provided the assurances the others would not.

“I’ll get the job done,” said Dodd, while Richardson said he would make sure the troops were home by the end of his first year in office.

Health care

Foreign policy blended with domestic issues at the two-hour debate, the drive for universal health care most prominently.

“I intend to be the health care president,” said Clinton, adding that she can now succeed at an undertaking that defeated her in 1993 when she was first lady.

But Sen. Joe Biden said that unnamed special interests were no more willing to work with Clinton than they were more than a decade ago.

“I’m not suggesting it’s Hillary’s fault. ... It’s reality,” he said, carefully avoiding a personal attack on the Democrat who leads in the polls.

Biden said a “lot of old stuff comes back” from past battles, adding, “when I say old stuff I mean policy. Policy.”

Across the stage, Clinton smiled at that.

The opening question of the two-hour debate plunged the eight contenders into the issue that has dominated all others in the race for the White House.

With the primary season approaching, all eight have vied with increasing intensity for the support of anti-war voters likely to provide money and organizing muscle as the campaign progresses.

Edwards said his position on Iraq was different from Obama and Clinton, adding he would “immediately draw down 40,000 to 50,000 troops.” That’s roughly half the 100,000 that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has indicated could be stationed there when President Bush’s term ends in January 2009.

Edwards sought to draw a distinction between his position and that of Clinton, saying she had said recently she wants to continue combat missions in Iraq.

“I do not want to continue combat missions in Iraq,” he said.

Clinton responded quickly, saying Edwards had misstated her position. She favors the continued deployment of counterterrorism troops, not forces to engage in the type of combat now under way.

Asked whether they were prepared to use force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, several of the hopefuls sidestepped. Instead, they said, all diplomacy must be exhausted in the effort.