PHIL WHITE Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Friday, March 7, 2008 12:00 am
LARAMIE - The Iraq war has nearly broken the American military, former President Bill Clinton told a crowd of about 2,000 people here Thursday evening during a campaign rally for his wife, Hillary.
The event took place at a small University of Wyoming gymnasium next to the 15,000-seat Arena-Auditorium where Sen. Barack Obama will speak at 7:15 p.m. today. Hundreds of people who had stood in line for hours in the 20-degree afternoon air were turned away because of a lack of space in the UniWyo Sports Complex, where the volleyball and wrestling teams compete.
Clinton spoke for 58 minutes and then shook hands for another half hour before his motorcade left for the airport.
Clinton said it is imperative for America to end the Iraq war.
"We have no reserve ground forces," he said. "Our readiness is lower than when I left office."
He said leaving Iraq would be best for both the United States and Iraq, arguing that the Iraqi government will not make the hard decisions it must make until U.S. troops are gone.
He said the attitude of the Bush administration has been, "My way or the highway." If elected, he said, Hillary would reach out to the world and find ways to cooperatively solve the huge problems of today.
"We can't solve any of these problems by ourselves," he said.
The event opened with a rousing short introduction by Clayton Elliott, a UW senior from Powell, who said Hillary would make obtaining a college degree a right, not a privilege. Former Wyoming Secretary of State Kathy Karpan, a Cheyenne lawyer who served as head of the federal Office of Surface Mining during Bill Clinton's administration, introduced him as a man "who went from a dirt floor in Arkansas to the highest office in the land. He rescued our economy and got along with the rest of the world."