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Saying she made a rare error, Hillary Clinton repeated Tuesday that she “misspoke” when she suggested she landed under sniper fire during a goodwill trip to Bosnia in March 1996.

Speaking to KDKA radio in Pittsburgh, the Democratic presidential candidate said it’s been a long campaign and this is the first time she has said the wrong thing.

“I have written about this and described in many different settings and I did misspeak the other day,” Clinton said during a live 10-minute interview. “This has been a very long campaign. … Last week for the first time in 12 years or so, I misspoke.”

Later in the day Clinton told reporters she disagrees with characterizations that she is pursuing a pattern of exaggeration.

“You know, I think that the military and the Secret Service did a terrific job. But we certainly did take precautions. There is no doubt about that, and I remember that very clearly,” she said. “So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I’m human, which, you know, for some people, is a revelation.”

But the latest explanations have opened an opportunity for Barack Obama’s campaign to offer several recent examples of Clinton “misspeak,” including remarks at a Feb. 29 even in Waco, Texas, with retired Gen. Wesley Clark and remarks at a Dec. 29 event in Iowa, both detailing how she had to make a run for it on the tarmac at Tuzla Air Base to avoid sniper fire.

That claim was repeated during a speech last Monday on Iraq, in which Clinton said of the trip: “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

The New York senator has since had to backtrack after a fact check and video revealed that rather than dodging hostile fire, the former first lady was greeted on the tarmac by an 8-year-old child and Bosnia’s acting president.

Clinton’s faulty memory was also corrected by the comedian Sinbad, who joined her on the trip and told The Washington Post he doesn’t remember any threats to their safety.

On defense, her campaign issued quotes from several newspaper articles at the time that conveyed that it was a military zone at the time of the visit and Clinton was surrounded by sharpshooters when she visited U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia.

Daughter Chelsea Clinton also responded Tuesday while campaigning in Indiana to the claims of being under sniper fire, saying: “I think that my mother’s on record as having talked about this and I support what she said. I mean, I was there as well and I’m so honored that I was there.”

Hillary Clinton told the radio station that she does not believe the error will damage her credibility.

“The military took great care of us,” Clinton said Tuesday. “They were worried about taking a first lady to a war zone and took some extra precautions.”

Click here to hear the Clinton interview on KDKA.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 9:21 am and is filed under Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.