Report: Bush advising Democratic candidates on Iraq

Above: Sheep herders guide their animals past a traffic control point outside Hussaniyah in July.

Bush quietly advising Hillary Clinton, top Democrats

President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.

In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ”

Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.”

“Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.”

To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008.

Read the rest at the Examiner

Paper: Bush Quietly Advising Hillary, Democrats

Through back channels using aides, President Bush has been quietly advising Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, according to a newspaper report...

Mr. Bush said a sudden withdrawal of U.S. forces would create a damaging power vacuum that is likely to be filled by al Qaeda or an Iranian-backed organization, which would lead to continued instability in Iraq for years to come.

"It's different being a candidate and being the president," Mr. Bush said in an Oval Office interview, according to the paper. "No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East, particularly one trying to be created by al Qaeda, they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy."

Read the rest at Newsroom America

Bush Offers Insight on War, Terrorism to White House Candidates

It would seem that Clinton may have heeded that advice, and at least holds a similar view on Iraq: It's too soon to say precisely what she would do in office because there is too much time between then and now.

Asked Sunday on ABC's "This Week" if she would pledge to bring troops home from Iraq, by the end of her first term in office, Clinton sidestepped.

"You know, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don't know what I'm going to inherit. ... I don't know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region," Clinton said.

"How much more aggressive will Iran have become? What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what's going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed Al Qaeda in Iraq out of their strongholds with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheikhs or will they have regrouped and retrenched? I don't know and I think it's not appropriate to be speculating."

Read the rest at Fox News

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