Senate hopeful rips Iraq war
"Campaign Races"02/24/2006
Bell vying with fellow DFLer Klobuchar
BY RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER
Pioneer Press
U.S. troops in Iraq should be withdrawn by the end of the year, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ford Bell said Thursday. He added that the debate on the war should be central to this year’s Senate race in Minnesota.
Bell hopes to use his position on the war to attract and excite Democratic caucus-goers. Bell faces an uphill challenge in his battle with his Democratic opponent, Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar. Party caucuses are set for March 7.
Bell said the war is wrongly conceived and wrongly executed and has cost more than $300 billion, almost 2,300 American lives and uncounted Iraq lives.
“Here in Minnesota, we support our troops. But we also support the truth. And the truth is that not one more young American, not one more Iraqi child, should die in this war,” said Bell, a veterinarian. There’s no magic to his proposed date — Christmas 2006 — for withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. He said commanders on the ground should determine the soonest time to safely but quickly remove troops from the troubled country.
Klobuchar has stopped short of calling for a certain date for troop withdrawal.
“I will fight for a clear plan to bring our troops home safely. We need to change course. 2006 should be the year that the Iraqi government decreases its dependency on the United States. It should be a year of transition in which we bring a significant number of our troops home,” she said in one of her position papers.
Of the war, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kennedy said, “I fully expect that over the next year there will be a significant number of troops who will be returning home because of success in Iraq, not because of calls from politicians who want us to cut and run from the war on terrorism. I will continue listening to the commanders in the field for their recommendations on how to win the war and bring our troops home safely.”