IOWA CITY - Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark said on Friday he would never have voted for war in Iraq, 24 hours after he told reporters he probably would have supported the Congressional resolution authorizing the United States to invade.
The retired four-star Army general and former NATO commander, who entered the 2004 White House race this week with no experience in elected politics, said his comments had been taken out of context.
They were at odds with his public opposition to the war and caught some of his supporters off guard.
"I would have never voted for war," Clark told Reuters before delivering a foreign policy speech at the University of Iowa. "I'm a soldier. I understand what war's about, but I would have voted for the right kind of leverage for the president to head off war and avoid it."
In his first appearance in Iowa, where his rivals have been campaigning for months, Clark climbed on a chair to tell supporters at the Hamburg Inn he had been anxious to get to the state, which will hold its caucuses on Jan. 19, even though Florida was his initial stop.
"The American people want informed, thoughtful, smart, compassionate, strategic leadership," Clark said. That's what I learned to do in the United States Army."
Seven of the nine other Democrats vying for the party's presidential nomination next year have campaign offices in Des Moines, Iowa's largest city, and the candidates themselves have invested time meeting Iowans face-to-face. Clark's late entry puts him at a fund-raising and organizational disadvantage.
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who has emerged as a leading contender in Iowa polls, has been to the state 78 times in the past 18 months.
But those same polls show many Iowa Democrats -- at least a third in most surveys -- have yet to align themselves with a candidate. Undecided voters could be fertile ground for a new face like Clark, although Democrats and analysts say he faces a dual challenge of introducing himself and offering specifics.
"We really don't know his positions on a lot of domestic issues, and he's going to have to make those clear in the weeks ahead," state Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer said.
More than 1,000 people attended Clark's speech, scheduled before he threw his hat into the presidential ring.
"Obviously, I should have come to Iowa sooner, but I am happy to be here now," he said to prolonged applause.
Clark, who headed the 1999 bombing campaign in Kosovo, reiterated his opposition to the way President Bush had gone to war in Iraq and called the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein a distraction in the battle against terrorism.
"Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and to a lesser extent, Egypt, those are the central fronts in the war on terror," he said.
In the domestic arena, Clark has conceded that he has some homework to do. He has not definitively committed to taking part in next Thursday's Democratic debate in New York -- which will focus on economic issues -- because of a scheduling conflict.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd
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