Hillary Clinton's Fateful Vote on Iraq

The Opinion Pages, Letters to the Editor featured in The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re ''Clinton Gives War Critics New Answer on '02 Vote'' (news article, Feb. 18):

I think it's immaterial to debate whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton should apologize or not for her vote in 2002 authorizing the Iraq war. The issue of real importance is that she failed to see what almost one-third of all Americans were able to see in spite of the Bush administration's relentless citing of ''evidence'': that there were no legal and legitimate reasons to invade Iraq and that the war was being launched to serve the administration's ideological ends.

America needs a leader who has the foresight to see beyond the obvious. If the war in Iraq is any indication, Senator Clinton failed to display that foresight at a critical juncture of this nation's history. An apology is not going to make any difference. 

Shankar Chaudhuri
Glen Ridge, N.J., Feb. 18, 2007