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Democrats Differ On Iraq

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By BETH FOUHY, The Associated Press

Published: September 27, 2007

HANOVER, N.H. - The leading Democratic presidential hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2013, the end of the next president's first term.

'I think it's hard to project four years from now,' said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

'It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting,' added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

'I cannot make that commitment,' said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Sensing an opening, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson provided the assurances the others would not.

'I'll get the job done,' said Dodd, while Richardson said he would make sure the troops were home by the end of his first year in office.

Foreign policy blended with domestic issues at the two-hour debate, and several of the Democrats endorsed payroll tax increases to assure a stable Social Security system.

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, as well as Dodd, Obama and Edwards all said they would apply the tax to income now exempted.

Richardson said he would not and Clinton refused to say. Current law levies a 7.65 payroll tax only on an individual's first $97,000 in annual income.

Biden also said he was willing to consider gradually raising the retirement age, which is now 67.

Kucinich said that although he favors taxing additional income, he wants to return the retirement age to 65, where it stood until the law was changed in 1983.

Health care, and the drive for universal coverage, also figured prominently in the debate.

'I intend to be the health care president,' said Clinton, adding she can now succeed at an undertaking that defeated her in 1993 when she was first lady.

Biden said unnamed special interests were no more willing to work with Clinton now than they were more than a decade ago.

'I'm not suggesting it's Hillary's fault ... It's reality,' he said, carefully avoiding a personal attack on the Democrat who leads in the polls.

Biden said a 'lot of old stuff comes back' from past battles, adding, 'when I say old stuff I mean policy. Policy.'

Across the stage, Clinton smiled at that.

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