'Meet the Press' transcript for Jan. 13, 2008

MR. RUSSERT: Let me, let me ask you this way. Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian, I talked to her and she's been on MEET THE PRESS, talked about the qualities in a president. And she said one of the most important is that you learn from mistakes. Looking back on your vote in October of 2002, what can you learn from that mistake, the way you'll make decisions in the future?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, I have said that obviously, I would never do again what George Bush did with that vote. He misused and abused the authority that was given to him, in my opinion. And we can't turn the clock back. I've taken responsibility for it. It was a sincere vote at the time, based on my assessment of, number one, what the potential, you know, risks might be if left unchecked, given the problems that we were facing in the world with global terrorism, and the hope that we would get inspectors back in to figure out what had been going on since '98. We hadn't had inspectors since '98. I, I would not have given President Bush the authority if I knew he would deliberately misuse and abuse it. And as I said, I was told by the White House personally that the point of the authority was to send a very clear message to Saddam Hussein that he was going to have to be held accountable finally, that we would know once and for all what he had there that could be used as he had used it in the past.

But you know, Tim, I think that it's only fair to look at the entire context, because, you know, I was against a preemptive war. I said at the time that would be a mistake. Obviously, President Bush doesn't listen to me or a lot of other people, and unfortunately, we're in the situation we are now, and we're going to have to have very careful and steady leadership to get us out with the least amount of damage.

MR. RUSSERT: Again, learning from mistake, do you wish you had read the National Intelligence Estimate, which had a lot of caveats from the State Department and the Energy Department as to whether or not Saddam Hussein really had a biological and chemical and active nuclear program?

SEN. CLINTON: I was fully briefed by the people who wrote that. I was briefed by the people from, you know, the State Department, the CIA, the Department of Defense; all of the various players in that. And many people who read it--well, actually, not very many people read the whole thing because we were getting constant briefings. And people--some people read it and voted for the resolution, some people read it and voted against the resolution. I felt very well briefed. And it wasn't just what the Bush administration was telling us in the NIE, I went way outside of any kind of Bush administration sources; independent people, people from the Clinton administration, people in the British government. I looked as broadly as I could at how to assess this.

And if, of course, you see the vote as I saw it as opposed as how it's been characterized, I thought it was a vote to put inspectors back in, to make it very clear that Saddam Hussein wouldn't be able to go off unchecked. If those inspectors had been permitted to do the job that they were set up to do, we would have avoided war. It became clear in retrospect, Tim, once people started writing books and information came out of the administration, the president had no intention of letting the inspectors do their job. That's not what I was told by the Bush White House. That's not what we were told in constant briefings from high-level Bush administration officials. That's not what the president told the country in his speech in Cincinnati shortly before the vote. If you remember, he said this vote was the best chance to avoid some kind of confrontation.

MR. RUSSERT: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back in South Carolina with more of our conversation with Senator Hillary Clinton, Democratic candidate for president, right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we're back talking to Senator Hillary Clinton. In a few moments, the presidential primary: Iowa and New Hampshire are down. Next up, Nevada, South Carolina. We'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back in South Carolina. The Democratic primary here a week from Saturday. Our guest is Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democrat from New York, candidate for president.

Experience is a big issue in this campaign...

SEN. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...that your campaign has talked about extensively. I want to go back to a debate back in October of 1992, when a young governor from Arkansas was talking about experience. Let's listen.

(Videotape, October 11, 1992):

Pres. CLINTON: I believe experience counts, but it's not everything.

We need a new approach. The same old experience is not relevant.

And you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: That could've been written by Barack Obama.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, by the time Bill ran in 1992, he was the senior most serving governor in our country. He had done a lot of work on the economic and trade issues that affected the state of Arkansas. And I do think that there's not a contradiction between experience and change. I think that they have been somehow put in these opposing categories, and I don't think that's the way that we make decisions in our life. What the question is is who has the experience we need to make the changes we want. And I believe that my experience over the course of 35 years of my life equips me very well to do exactly what Bill said in that clip.

I am rooted in the real lives of real people. That is what I've cared about, that's what motivates me. That's what I want to do as president. And so when I go out, it is to talk with people about what I can do to help them, and it is a reflection then of everything that I have done over the course of my life, you know, as a public servant, as a public office holder. I just think it's imperative that we quit this false distinction. It is who has the experience we need to make the changes we want. And we need and want to have it happen in America, and I believe that I am tested and ready and prepared to do it.

You know, we just spent the most--the first part of the program talking about a speech and vote from 2002. What people are talking to me about is the economy. They're losing their jobs. You know, economic activity is slowing down. We need to focus very clearly on what we're going to do to make this economy as, you know, ready to be able to navigate through the potential of a recession. We're slipping toward recession. Some people think we're in recession right now. And I've proposed a very vigorous package of economic action that I think would, you know, forestall and maybe, hopefully mitigate against what is going on in the economy.

MR. RUSSERT: You don't pay for it.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, Tim, I am probably the strongest on fiscal responsibility in this campaign. Senator Edwards, I respect, he said that's not a priority for him. Senator Obama puts out a lot of his policies without paying for them, about 50 billion, as we have calculated. I have paid for everything. I tell you how I will pay for my healthcare plan, how I will pay for the American retirement accounts.

MR. RUSSERT: But not for this stimulus.

SEN. CLINTON: But this--stimulus shouldn't be paid for. The whole point of stimulus--now, as we end the war in Iraq, we're going to be bringing that money home. But the stimulus, by the very nature of the economic problems we're facing, is going to require an injection of federal funding. And I would start with the mortgage crisis. You know, I've been doing events in Nevada and California, which have very high rates of mortgage foreclosure. I want to have a moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days so we can try to work them out. I want to freeze interest rates for five years, and I want to have a $30 billion package that will go in and try to stabilize the housing market and stabilize communities that are going to be affected by that.

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