SIOUX CITY - Pace-setting Democrat Hillary Clinton pledged Monday to order top military brass to start bringing home troops from Iraq, if she captures the White House in 2008.
As President George W. Bush paid a surprise visit to Iraq's Anbar province to highlight his drive for more time for his "troop surge" policy, Clinton vowed that she would begin troop withdrawals in early 2009.
"As soon as I am president, I will call the Joint Chiefs together, my Secretary of Defense, my security advisors -- and give them a very simple directive -- start planing now to bring them home as soon as we responsibly can," she said in a campaign swing through Iowa.
Bush said during his surprise visit to Iraq that if current "success" in Iraq was maintained, security could be maintained in the war-ravaged nation with fewer US troops -- a vow unlikely to assuage Democratic complaints.
Democratic presidential candidates slammed the president over Iraq as they courted blue collar voters on the Labor Day weekend in Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold crucial party nominating contests early next year.
The Labor Day holiday, marks the traditional starting gun for next year's election, when candidates turn more to personal attacks and voters begin to tune in, though the going has already been intense in the 2008 race.
Republicans, who don't count organized labor as a major support base, were due to pick up the pace later this week, with the entry into their fluid race of screen star and former senator Fred Thompson.
Clinton did not specifically mention Bush's visit to Anbar, en route to talks with Asia-Pacific leaders in Australia.
But one of her top rivals for the Democratic nomination, former senator John Edwards, who like her voted to authorize the war in 2002 and now opposes it, lashed the president over the trip.
"The situation in Iraq is too serious for any more "Mission Accomplished" photo-ops," Edwards said, referencing Bush's flight to a returning aircraft carrier in 2003, in which he declared major combat operations over.
Bush's stopover came the day before Congress returns to Washington with a major clash brewing over his strategy to surge nearly 30,000 more troops into the country.
Edwards jabbed Senator Clinton, and another top Democrat 2008 hopeful Senator Barack Obama, for failing to marshall a more effective effort to halt the surge, in Congress.
Clinton and Obama meanwhile both proclaimed themselves champions of change, and swapped new personal jibes.
Obama, in New Hampshire, hit straight back at Clinton, after she Sunday rapped his credentials to lead a generational change, after what Democrats see as wasted years under Bush.
"To meet America's challenges, changing parties isnt change enough. We need something new, we need to turn the page," said the Illinois senator, vying to become America's first black president.
"There are those who tout their experience working the system in Washington," Obama said, in sharp remarks apparently targeted at Clinton who argues only she has the experience to be president.
"The problem is that the system in Washington isnt working for us and hasnt for a long time."
Clinton at a Labor Day picnic in Sioux City, Iowa, Clinton argued only she was prepared to be president.
Enforcing change was about "more than making a speech" or "hoping it happens," she said -- the word hope is a major theme of Obama's campaign.
Edwards meanwhile celebrated the endorsement of the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America, as he bets heavily on a win in the Iowa caucuses.
09/03/2007 20:05 GMT