Sen. Mark Kirk’s campaign website briefly — and incorrectly — described the junior senator from Illinois as a “veteran of the Iraq war,” despite not serving in Iraq during the invasion while he was a member of the Naval Reserves.
The language, which appeared on a page touting veterans’ support for the senator’s re-election, was first reported by CNN. It has since been made private behind a password, but is available through Google searches and web archives.
Kirk’s campaign claimed that the language had just been a draft, written by a vendor working for the campaign, while edits were being made on what was meant to be an initially private page.
Kirk, who was elected to the Senate in 2010, was a U.S. represenative at the time of the Iraq invasion and worked for the Naval Reserves in the United States. CNN reported that he told a journalist in 2003 that he would likely not see battle unless the Iraqi army arrived in Washington, D.C.
The website’s language was also not the first instance for which Kirk has been criticized in describing his military service. In 2003, Kirk claimed on the House floor that "the last time I was in Iraq, I was in uniform flying at 20,000 feet and the Iraqi Air Defense network was shooting at us."
During his 2010 Senate campaign, Kirk walked back that statement, saying there was no record of whether or not he was fired at during those flights, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Kirk’s Democratic challenger for the Senate seat, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, served as an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq and lost both her legs when her Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a grenade by insurgents in 2004. She received a Purple Heart and eventually retired from the Illinois Army National Guard in 2014.
Duckworth’s campaign declined to comment on the website’s language.
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