Former US officials: Sanders ‘disinterested’ in foreign policy

WASHINGTON — Hours before Democratic presidential rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders squared off in a CNN debate, the Clinton campaign released a joint statement Thursday from 19 former US diplomats and security officials lambasting the Vermont senator for what they call his “continued disinterest” in foreign policy.

Citing Sanders’s controversial interview with the New York Daily News editorial board last week — in which he mistakenly said Israel killed “over 10,000 innocent” Palestinian civilians in the 2014 Gaza War, though he later acknowledged that those figures were inaccurate — the group of Clinton-backing former officials said they were “deeply troubled by his continued lack of interest in and knowledge of essential foreign policy and national security issues. His recent interview with the New York Daily News demonstrates this problem anew.”

The highly-circulated interview raised eyebrows in Washington’s national security establishment over instances where Sanders struggled to answer how he would approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, combat the Islamic State terrorist group or interrogate US-captured foreign combatants.

The former officials quoted by the Clinton campaign said Sanders’ difficulty in addressing these issues reflected his neglect of “crucial national security issues” relating to US foreign policy.

“Senator Sanders was asked specific — but not unexpected or unusual — questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He couldn’t answer, but said that if he ‘had some paper’ in front of him, he might be able to,” the statement said, referring to Sanders’ response after being pressed to elaborate on his call for Israel to “pull back” settlements from the West Bank.

Furthermore, the statement said: “He was asked his opinion on key parts of the Obama Administration’s counter-terrorism strategy. Again, he couldn’t answer. That’s concerning, especially just a few weeks after the attack in Brussels. The same goes for what he said about how he’d go about interrogating captured terrorists if he were President. ‘Actually, I haven’t thought about it a whole lot,’ he said. That’s surprising, to say the least — particularly given the dangerous proposals we’re hearing from Republicans on using torture and keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention facility open.”

“These were not ‘gotcha’ questions,” the statement continued. “As people who have advised presidents on critical issues like these, we know how important it is to have a Commander-in-Chief who has a deep grasp of them — or who, at the very least, takes them seriously enough to reach beyond the basics. We respect Senator Sanders’s passion for building a better America, but we are troubled by his continued inability to articulate a vision of our nation’s role in the world.”

Most of the signatories worked in the administration of president Bill Clinton, or under Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Eight of them had previously confronted Sanders’ foreign policy chops through another joint statement orchestrated by the Clinton campaign in January. That paper excoriated the underdog candidate for positions he’d voiced on addressing the IS terrorist threat and preventing Iran from developing a nuclear program.

Thursday’s statement closed by invoking that previous statement, and suggested that the concerns it had voiced have not been addressed.

“Many of us raised concerns earlier this year that Senator Sanders had not thought through crucial national security issues,” it said. “His interview with the New York Daily News shows that he’s made no effort to change that. America needs a President who has given serious thought to how she or he would approach the serious challenges we’re facing, and who will be ready to lead on day one.”

In recent weeks, Sanders has gained momentum in the Democratic nominating race by winning seven of the last eight primary and caucus contests, though Clinton continues to hold a commanding delegate lead, with 1,758 to Sanders’s 1,069. To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must accrue the support of 2,383 delegates.

The two Democratic rivals will debate Thursday night in Brooklyn, New York, ahead of the Empire State’s crucial April 19th primary.