Clinton book covers Bergdahl, Benghazi, Iraq but not 2016
Hillary Rodham Clinton writes about negotiations with the Taliban to secure the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, noting that such talks “would be hard to swallow for many Americans after so many years of war.”
Hard Choices, Clinton’s book about her years as secretary of State and working alongside her onetime rival President Obama, is being released Tuesday. CBS News bought a copy of the book at a store and reported on some of its contents Thursday night. (Simon & Schuster, Clinton’s book publisher, is also owned by CBS Corp.)
The book and Clinton’s interviews related to it are bound to be scrutinized intensely as she decides whether to run for president in 2016.
On Bergdahl, whose controversial release last week in exchange for five Taliban prisoners has become a headache for the White House, Clinton writes that the Taliban’s “top concern seemed to be the fate of its fighters being held at Guantanamo Bay and other prisons.”
“There would not be any agreement about prisoners without the sergeant coming home,” Clinton says about Bergdahl, who had been held since 2009. “I acknowledged, as I had many times before, that opening the door to negotiations with the Taliban would be hard to swallow for many Americans after so many years of war.”
The book jacket for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book, “Hard Choices,” coming out June 10. (Simon & Schuster)
The CBS News account of the book’s highlights, posted on its website, includes sections on Clinton’s words about the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the “wicked problem” of Syria and her disagreement with President Obama over the need to train and arm rebels.
Hard Choices is also said to include Clinton’s account of burying the hatchet with Obama, her onetime rival for the presidency; her relationships with her predecessors at the State Department and Vice President Biden; and how she prepped for daughter Chelsea’s wedding and dealt with jet lag.
Recounting the criticism she encountered in the 2008 campaign for voting for the Iraq War, Clinton writes her “mistake” became more painful every time she sent a condolence letter while she was a U.S. senator to a New York family that lost a son or daughter.
“I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong,” Clinton says, according to CBS News. “But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple.”
There are fun tidbits, such as the gift Clinton received from former secretary of State George Shultz, who gave her a teddy bear that would sing Don’t Worry, Be Happy when its paw was squeezed. She admits she would squeeze the bear every so often.
But there is only one mention of the burning question about her political future and it is found on page 595 of the 600-page tome.
“Will I run for president in 2016? The answer is, I haven’t decided yet,” Clinton writes.
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