Bullet Point Election News: Bosnia

Showing posts with label Bosnia. Show all posts

Thursday, April 3, 2008

North Carolina Democratic Presidential Debate Now Proposed for April 27th

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been invited to participate in a debate on April 27th in a joint letter from the North Carolina Democratic Party and CBS News. Click here for a copy of the letters to Clinton and Obama.
The proposed debate would be held from 8:00 to 9:30 EST and would be hosted by Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer.
Barack Obama had previously accepted an invitation to participate in the North Carolina debate which was originally scheduled two days before the Pennsylvania Primary.
Clinton did not accept CBS's debate invitation initially. Her decision may have been linked to the fact that the CBS Evening news anchored by Katie Couric aired the original video and report debunking Hillary Clinton's Bosnia sniper fire story mentioned in her Iraq War Speech.
The two candidates are also scheduled to debate in Pennsylvania on April 16, 2008.

Sources:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/03/politics/horserace/entry3991721.shtml

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/03/clinton_ready_for_philly_debat.html

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/politics/clinton_obama_cbs_news_would_like_to_hear_from_you_81521.asp

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

International News Reaction to Hillary's Misspeak on Bosnia

It has been widely reported that Hillary Clinton used the Bosnia story as testimony to her foreign policy experience.
The following are headlines and excerpts from around the world with regards to her statements on the 1996 Bosnia trip.
Radio Netherlands "In the United States, Hillary Clinton has been seriously embarrassed by lying about a visit she made to Bosnia in 1996."
Australia's News.Com "DEMOCRAT Hillary Clinton has been forced to admit her dramatic account of coming under life-threatening sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia was inaccurate."
Serbian news site BalkanInsight.Com "Hillary Clinton, who is bidding for the Democratic ticket to run for the United States Presidency, was left red-faced when her account of a 1996 trip to Bosnia turned out to be untrue."
BBC UK "Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has been challenged over claims that she came under sniper fire during a trip she made to Bosnia in the 1990s."
Ireland's RTE News "Clinton admits error over gunfire claim. US Democrat Hillary Clinton has admitted being wrong in her claim that a hail of sniper fire ambushed her arrival on a 1990s trip to Bosnia."
India's MyNews.In " Hillary caught lying about Bosnia trip. Hillary Clinton often gives the example of her Bosnia trip twelve years ago as evidence of her experience. While First Lady she reports flying into Bosnia and arriving under sniper fire in the airplane and then being rushed into vehicles to carry her away from the airstrip. The only problem is that it never happened."

Sources:
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/5701175/Clintons-campaign-hurt-by-false-Bosnia-claim

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23428981-1702,00.html

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/8884

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7313117.stm

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0325/uselection.htm

lhttp://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=3279

Hillary Clinton Admits She Misspoke About Bosnia Trip While Asking Philadelphia Daily News for Endorsement

Related Post: Was Hillary Clinton Under Sniper Fire? Statements in Iraq Speech Disputed by Many Sources

Hillary Clinton Admits She Misspoke While Asking Philadelphia Daily News for Endorsement

In her Iraq War speech last week Clinton said upon arrival in Bosnia in 1996 that "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
CBS Nightly News said "Those of us on that trip recall it differently. Instead of running for cover, Clinton was greeted by a school girl, who read her a poem of welcome" and the Washington Post published a photo of the greeting.
The following is the CBS video of Hillary arriving in Bosnia on March 25, 1996:

On March 24, 2008 Clinton met with the editorial boards of the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer seeking an endorsement by the Daily News editorial board.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News writes that in his blog that "This afternoon, in the session with Daily News editorial writers and reporters (and some Inquirer staffers as well) in a conference room at the Daily News and Inquirer Building, I asked the presidential candidate about these discrepancies and also showed her a copy of the photo -- at the top of this post -- of her on the tarmac that day.

She was quick to answer, jumping in before I was fully finished with the
question. Here's here response in its entirety:

"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told. I was
told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left, Now that's my memory of it.
I followed-up, noting that the episode has raised questions about her credibility on foreign policy. She responded:

"No, I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. you know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said
something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."

Sources:

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080325_Hillarys_Bosnia_misstatement.html http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080325.htm

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Was Hillary Clinton Under Sniper Fire? Statements in Iraq Speech Disputed by Many Sources

Related Post: Hillary Clinton Speech on War in Iraq

In Hillary Clinton's March 18, 2008 speech on the War in Iraq delivered at George Washington University and at other campaign stops and interviews Hillary Clinton has cited her 1996 trip to Bosnia among her foreign policy credentials.
Her description of the trip from her March 18 speech is as follows:

"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went.
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Hillary Clinton was accompanied on the 1996 Bosnia trip by her then 16 year old daughter Chelsea, comedian Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crow.
Sinbad and other news agencies are disputing Clinton's description of the trip, specifically the statement above. With regard to Clinton's statement that she went on the trip because Bosnia was "too small, too poor, or too dangerous" for the President, comedian Sinbad responded: “What kind of president would say ‘Hey man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.”
FactCheck.Org looked into the statement and four other foreign policy related statements Clinton made during a March 6, 2008 interview on CNN and pointed out that "Clinton has repeatedly referenced her "dangerous" trip to Bosnia. She fails to mention, however, that the Bosnian war had officially ended three months before her visit – or that she made the trip with her 16-year-old daughter and two entertainers."
The Associated Press (AP) reports that "according to accounts at the time, she was placed under no extraordinary risks on that trip. And one of her companions on it said he has no recollection either of the threat or reality of gunfire."
During later questioning "Clinton said she was moved into the cockpit of the C-17 cargo plane as they were flying into Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina. "Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests," she said. "And we came in, in an evasive maneuver. ... There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened.""
The AP then references Hillary's description of the trip in her book "Living History". The following is the text from the book as reported in the AP article:

""Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find," she wrote. "She also described in the book how the plane was kept high, "above the reach of surface-to-air missiles and sniper fire." She wrote, "Above the airstrip, the captain dipped a wing and made a near-perpendicular landing to evade possible ground fire.""

In 1996, the AP reported that: "Security was tight — fighter jets accompanied her C-17 cargo plane to Tuzla — but officials said the first lady took no extraordinary risks on the trip."
"The first lady spent quite a bit of time in the cockpit, with pilot Cheryl Beineke, one of just four female C-17 pilots in the U.S. Air Force."
The Wall Street Journal reported that "last week, the comedian Sinbad, who accompanied Clinton on the trip along with singer Sheryl Crow and then-first daughter Chelsea, said he remembers the landing differently. “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place?’”

Sources:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/hillarys_adventures_abroad.html

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hOOyd7DUPKM4G2Pd019mg-KEr6NQD8VFEKRG0

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/17/he-said-she-said-hillary-and-sinbad/

Monday, March 17, 2008

Hillary Clinton Speech on War in Iraq

Today, March 17, 2008, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on the War in Iraq at George Washington University.
The following are excerpts from her speech:

"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went.
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.
"The mistakes in Iraq are not the responsibility of our men and women in uniform but of their Commander-in-Chief.
"There is no magic wand to wave. Bringing our troops home safely will take a president who is ready to be Commander-in-Chief on day one, a president who knows our military and has earned their respect.
"I would further seek to stabilize Iraq by insisting that the country's oil revenues, instead of U.S. taxpayer dollars, increasingly be used to fund Iraq’s reconstruction."

Click here for the full transcript of Clinton's speech.

Source:http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=6567