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http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/32699.htm

WHAT CLINTON DOESN'T SAY

October 26, 2004 -- Bill Clinton left his sickbed yesterday to stump for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. His return to the campaign trail — six weeks after quadruple-bypass heart surgery — drew inevitable comparisons to injured Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.
Not surprisingly, Clinton campaigned like the loyal and partisan Democrat that he's always been. But it's significant that in his remarks yesterday, the former president stuck almost exclusively to domestic issues.

Doubtless there's a good reason for that.

John Kerry has blasted Operation Iraqi Freedom as "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Does Bill Clinton agree with that?

There's nothing on the record to suggest that he does.

Indeed, Clinton to date has never taken issue with President Bush's decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime. On the contrary — from the start, he has been unequivocally supportive of the need to finally make Saddam comply with international sanctions or face the consequences.

Just days after Bush's now-controversial State of the Union Address in 2003, Clinton declared: "After what happened on 9/11, the will of the international community has stiffened, as represented by this last U.N. resolution, which said clearly that the penalty for noncompliance is no longer sanctions."

What's that?
A link between the events of 9/11 and the need to confront Saddam Hussein?
Coming from Bill Clinton, yet?

Moreover, he said: "People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons."

In fact, as recently as four months ago, Clinton noted: "I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq."

Of course, there was a time when John Kerry used to agree with that, too.

Like back in 1998, when Clinton sent a bombing strike against Iraq in an effort to force compliance with U.N. weapons inspectors.

"Saddam Hussein's objective is to maintain a program of weapons of mass destruction," warned Kerry back then.

"It is important to hold him accountable by force. No one will question that it is Mr. Hussein who has precipitated this confrontation — and no one else."

Yes, you read correctly: "It is important to hold him accountable by force."

Kerry even felt that way when President Bush asked for the authority to use the same kind of force against Saddam. That's why he voted "aye."

But that was before the antiwar crowd took effective control of the Democratic Party. Suddenly, Kerry was busy parsing words, explaining that he'd only supported the "authorization" to use force — not its actual use.

Naturally, Bill Clinton is too staunch a Democrat to point out to his audiences that John Kerry is all wrong on the war. But the fact remains that when it comes to Iraq, Bill Clinton is miles closer to the Republican president than he is to his own candidate.