HILLARY CLINTON BOOK.

Will she? Won’t she?
For more than a decade, Hillary Clinton’s
presidential aspirations have lingered around the
political rumor mill. Would she take on President
George W. Bush in 2004? Would 2008 be her
year? Would she dare leave the State Department
to mount a primary challenge to President Barack
Obama in 2012? Is she ready to run again in
2016?
Publication of Hard Choices, Clinton’s memoir of
her time as Secretary of State, will only feed the
speculation about her 2016 plans. In it, she
portrays herself as a shrewd but pragmatic
diplomat, and she responds sharply to Republican
criticisms of her time at the State Department.
Mostly, though, it’s a long-winded resume of
someone who at least wants to appear ready for
another run at the White House.
Clinton’s book begins in 2008 as she bowed out
of the presidential contest and eventually — and,
she writes, reluctantly — joins Obama’s cabinet as
Secretary of State.
From there, she meticulously goes through dozens
of crises, region by region, depicting a complex
world of difficult decisions and a United States
with diminished international standing after the
Bush years. She recounts the decision-making
behind Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan,
explains the "reset" with Russia, and describes the
tense moments in the Situation Room watching
SEAL Team Six take out Osama bin Laden.
Clinton also takes on two issues where her critics
continue to pound her: supporting the Iraq War
and the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in
Benghazi.
On Iraq, she is apologetic. "I still got it wrong,"
she says. "Plain and simple." And while she takes
blame for the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens
in Libya, she strikes back at those who continue
to question the administration’s response.
Still, it’s largely a politically risk-averse account
that plays up her role in dozens of international
conflicts without ruffling too many feathers. In
that sense, it is starkly different than Duty , the
memoir by Robert Gates, who served as Defense
Secretary under both Republican and Democratic
presidents. While both authors pull back the
curtain on the inner workings of the current
administration, Gates is highly critical of many
Washington players, including Vice President Joe
Biden, and of the Beltway culture. By contrast,
Clinton takes few shots — and even has nice
things to say about Bush and his paintings.
Ultimately, it’s a somewhat pedantic read — so
cautiously written, and so free of politically
charged rhetoric, that it proved difficult for
PolitiFact to find too many factual faults with it.
Indeed, the most inaccurate comment we explored
came from Clinton’s book tour, not the book itself.
When Clinton appeared on ABC with Diane Sawyer, the
former first lady was pressed on the $5 million she
reportedly earned in speaking fees.
"You have no reason to remember, but we came out of
the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,"
Clinton said. "We had no money when we got there, and
we struggled to piece together the resources for
mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. It was
not easy."
Clinton’s "dead broke" comment elicited eye-rolls from
Republicans, and we found it to be dubious as well.
While incomplete earnings reports perhaps showed more
debt than assets, a balance sheet does not tell the full
story. The experts we reached said the Clintons’ earning
potential had a real economic value that the financial
sector traditionally acknowledges and is willing to bank
on. We rated her statement Mostly False .
The handful of checkable facts we looked at from the
656-page book itself were largely accurate, we found.
For instance, Clinton discusses how her relationship
with Gates was one of collaboration, atypical of the
inter-cabinet turf wars of past administrations. When
Gates’ Pentagon pushed for more troops in Afghanistan,
the two also worked together to get more State
Department personnel in the country to focus on local
and diplomatic issues.
Clinton boasts the positive results from the dual efforts,
noting that "by the time I left State, the Afghans had
made progress. Economic growth was up and opium
production was down. Infant mortality declined by 22
percent. Under the Taliban only 900,000 boys and no
girls had been enrolled in schools. By 2010, 7.1 million
students were enrolled, and nearly 40 percent of them
were girls."
We found her claims about school enrollment, infant
mortality, and economic growth to be basically
accurate, but her take on opium production is
somewhat exaggerated. We rated the statement Mostly
True.
One of the most controversial passages in the book
politically was Clinton’s strong endorsement of
Obama’s policy of using drones to kill terrorists
overseas. Clinton defended Obama’s heavy reliance on
armed, unmanned aircraft to take out top al-Qaida
officials, even as foreign leaders made clear to her their
opposition to the policy and concerned Middle East
citizens voiced their concerns directly to her.
Clinton argued that drones were a critical tool in
fighting terrorism without risking American lives. By
2009, she said, "it was widely known that dozens of
senior terrorists had been taken off the battlefield by
drones, and we later learned that bin Laden himself
worried about the heavy losses that drones were
inflicting."
There’s no public headcount, but we were able to
confirm the number of senior terrorists killed through
2009 was at least a couple dozen. We rated this
statement True.
Clinton’s take on the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack
was the most anticipated chapter in the book. In it, she
laments the loss of Stevens, whom she knew personally,
and outlines the events that led to his death as well as
the U.S. response to the attack on the Benghazi
compound.
What hampered the American response to the attack?
Clinton said one reason is the U.S. military footprint in
Africa is "nearly nonexistent."
The United States has only had an African Command
since 2008, and it is largely focused on working with
African countries to train troops. There is very little
military infrastructure, combat troops, or heavy
firepower. There is just one military base — 2,000 miles
from Benghazi in Djibouti — and the headquarters is
actually in Germany.
While other military assets were located closer in
Europe, on this narrow question, several African and
international military experts said Clinton had a point.
We rated the claim True.
Just because the book included some accurate facts
doesn’t mean her views will stand up to scrutiny in the
presidential campaign. But her carefully vetted book
mirrors the tightly-crafted image she has publicly
maintained throughout her political career.
On the larger question of whether she will run for
president, Clinton gave no direct hints. "The answer is, I
haven’t decided yet," she wrote.