Hillary Clinton's 2002 vote to authorize President Bush to go to war in Iraq continues to dog her on the campaign trail. Speaking to Monitor editors and reporters yesterday, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke gave a lengthy defense of that vote, which centered on Clinton's hope that Bush would use the Senate's support to avoid war. A Monitor editor asked why Clinton wasn't naïve to hope that Bush would use the vote to avoid military conflict.

"Here's why I know she's telling the truth," said Holbrooke, who was in New Hampshire to stump for Clinton. "After I left the U.N., I remained in very close touch with Kofi Annan; he's a very close friend. And at exactly the same time, but after the Senate vote, we were at Kofi's residence, my wife and I, and (Colin) Powell had just been up there, and Powell was trying to get the 15 votes at the Security Council for Security Council Resolution [1441], which ultimately passed. And I said, 'What's going on?' And Kofi said, 'He's told us that if we get a unanimous vote, we can avoid war.'

"The French ambassador at the time was Jean-David Levitte, who is now (French President Nicolas Sarkozy's) national security adviser, and the British ambassador was Sir Jeremy Greenstock. . . . Both told me exactly the same thing: Powell had said to their face what Hillary had said earlier in her speech. . . . She will tell you she had private assurances from (Condoleezza) Rice and from Powell. I know she's not making it up, because three of the best diplomats in the world - Kofi Annan, Greenstock and Levitte - told me exactly the same thing, all of it from Powell."

The Monitor followed up by asking whether Holbrooke thought Powell was "being duplicitous" or "was duped."

Holbrooke responded that, "I think he deluded himself, because his ethos could not allow him to believe that the commander in chief and the vice commander in chief of the country had sent him into battle knowing that he was carrying a poison pill. . . .What you're talking about really is a psychodrama about a guy who deluded himself. So my guess is that he believed what he was doing, he didn't know he was lying - it's too big a leap. But his silence on this issue tells you how deeply he must be bleeding inside."

Push polling

The attorney general's office has launched an inquiry into prerecorded calls made in New Hampshire by a group calling itself "Common Sense Issues" that say nice things about Mike Huckabee while slamming John McCain.

Huckabee's campaign says it has nothing to do with the calls and sent a letter to the attorney general's office Monday asking for an investigation.

"Anybody who knows anything about politics knows that this type of politics never, ever helps a candidate," said state Sen. Bob Clegg, a Huckabee supporter. "It is an independent group, but who's paying them?"

The state is looking into whether the calls violate either the laws governing push-polling or a separate state law that requires prerecorded calls identify the source within 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, Jim Kennedy of the attorney general's office says the state is continuing an earlier investigation into some anti-Mitt Romney, pro-McCain push-poll calls. He hopes that will be done before the primary, he said. One of the people on the other end of the line of the purportedly pro-Huckabee call was Bruce Clendenning, projects director of the Granite State Conservation Voters Alliance. When he got the call at home yesterday, Clendenning said, he said he'd be voting for McCain.

The group asked if he knew that McCain was part of a group that "derailed the nominations of 14 conservative judicial nominees." Then it asked if he was less likely to vote for McCain knowing that.

The call also asked some questions that put Huckabee in a favorable light, Clendenning said.

At the end, the automated voice said the message was from a group called "Common Sense Issues" and gave a Virginia area code, Clendenning said.

Clendenning's office mate, Jim O'Brien, was also on the receiving end of a call. He, too, said he would vote for McCain, and he recalls getting asked questions that highlighted McCain's role in campaign finance reform and in the Keating Five savings and loan scandal from the 1980s.

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