by John McCormick
Marking the five-year anniversary of his first speech in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama today boosted his efforts to differentiate himself from other candidates who voted to support the war.
“The American people weren’t just failed by a president,” he told several hundred students and others at DePaul University in Chicago.
“They were failed by much of Washington. By a media that too often reported spin instead of facts. By a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war. And most of all by the majority of a Congress – a coequal branch of government – that voted to give the president the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day,” he said. “So let’s be clear: without that vote, there would be no war.”
Although he did not name Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Obama made several less than subtle references to votes made by others to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
“Some seek to rewrite history,” he said. “They argue that they weren’t really voting for war, they were voting for inspectors, or they were voting for diplomacy. But the Congress, the administration, the media and the American people all understood what we were debating in the fall of 2002. This was a vote about whether or not to go to war.”
Obama’s 2002 speech, delivered in the Loop’s Federal Plaza, became a pivotal moment in his political career and remains a centerpiece of his presidential bid.
(Sen. Barack Obama at DePaul University today. Tribune staff photo by Michael Tercha)
The first-term senator repeated his often-used mantra of being a Washington outsider, as he suggested that he would lead in a more consensus-building way.
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“If you want conventional Washington thinking, I’m not your man. If you want rigid ideology, I’m not your man. If you think that fundamental change can wait, I’m definitely not your man,” he said.
“But if you want to bring this country together, if you want experience that’s broader than just learning the ways of Washington, if you think that the global challenges we face are too urgent to wait, and if you think that America must offer the world a new and hopeful face, then I offer a different choice in this race and a different vision for our future. “
The 30-minute speech, to be delivered twice again in Iowa later today, covered a broad smattering of foreign policy topics.
One of those proposals was for establishing a national goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons.
“We need to change our nuclear policy and our posture, which is still focused on deterring the Soviet Union – a country that no longer exist,” he said. “Meanwhile, India and Pakistan and North Korea have joined the club of nuclear-armed nations, and Iran is knocking on the door. The more nuclear weapons and more nuclear-armed nations mean more danger to us all.”
Obama said he would not pursue unilateral disarmament, as long as nuclear weapons exist because “America must retain a strong nuclear deterrent.”
A priority, Obama said, would be the dramatically reduce the worldwide stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material that could potentially fall into the hands of terrorists.
If elected president, Obama said he would deliver an annual “State of the World” address. His advisers said such a speech is needed because domestic issues often overshadow foreign policy in State of the Union addresses.
He also called for a fixed term for the Director of National Intelligence, a position that now serves at the pleasure of the president.
Ted Sorensen, a top adviser to President Kennedy, introduced Obama. Sorensen is expected to travel with Obama later today as his delivers the same speech at two locations in Iowa.