TRIANGULATING FROM THE TRIANGLE:

U.S. senators visit Iraq; Clinton says insurgency is failing (Todd Pitman, February 19, 2005, Associated Press)

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said today a string of attacks killing more than 50 Iraqis in two days were failed attempts to sow sectarian strife and destabilize the country.

Clinton, a New York Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were part of a five-member congressional delegation that met with U.S. officials and members of Iraq's interim government.

Both Clinton and McCain have been strident critics of the Pentagon's planning and management of the war in Iraq. But Clinton said Saturday that Sunni Muslim insurgents were failing in their efforts to destabilize Iraq through sectarian violence. [...]

Clinton said insurgents had also failed to disrupt Iraq's landmark Jan. 30 elections, won by the Shiite clergy-backed ticket. The United Iraqi Alliance won 140 seats in the 275-seat National Assembly.

``Not one polling place was shut down or overrun and the fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure,'' she said.

``The results of the election are a strong rebuke to those who did not believe that the Iraqi people would take this opportunity to demonstrate their own commitment to their own future.''

Ms Clinton will continue to distance herself from her own party on such issues as she prepares her run for the presidency.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 19, 2005 5:33 PM