After nearly a month of not taking a single question from the press, Hillary Clinton finally made herself available for a brief five minutes on Tuesday in Iowa and took some questions including whether she thought the United States was "better off without Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq."
Clinton, who voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2002, briefly answered by stating she "made a mistake, plain and simple."
Though Republican candidates have been hammered with questions on Iraq, many questions remain for Clinton, including whether the allegation made by former secretary of defense Robert Gates that her decision to oppose the troop surge in 2007 was made solely for political reasons ahead of the Democratic primary election in 2008.
This is what Gates wrote in his 2014 book:
Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary ... The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.
Obama has denied Gates' claim, stating to Politico that he always opposed both the war and the surge and that "any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong."
Unsuprisingly, "a spokesman for Clinton would not respond to Politico's request for comment."
So here's another Iraq question that the press must ask Clinton: Was the decision to oppose the troop surge in Iraq made for political reasons?
The Washington Free Beacon has submitted the question to the Clinton campaign.