Attempting to best opponent Barack Obama in positioning herself against the war in Iraq, Hillary Clinton is taking issue with her rival's voting record, noting that Obama supported funding for the troops even though he claims he opposes the war.

Clinton is trying to get the edge against her anti-war Democratic presidential opponent ahead of a South Carolina primary that puts Obama 13 points in front of Clinton, according to a Real Clear Politics average of recent Palmetto State polling.

"I think that you have two different story lines here. You have Senator Obama's storyline, the speech he gave in '02, to his credit, which then was not followed up on. By '03, it was off his Web site. By '04, he was saying he didn't know he would vote and that he basically agreed with George Bush on the conduct of the war," Clinton said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Obama countered that Clinton is just trying to distort his record for her own gain.

"Senator Clinton started off trying to make history now she's trying to rewrite it," the Illinois senator said in a conference call with reporters on Sunday. "For her to suggest somehow that half of a sentence that I uttered in 2004 ... to take out of context and to try to suggest that somehow my position and hers were the same is ludicrous."

While a senator, Obama admittedly did vote for war funding, he says, out of an obligation to support the troops. He noted other prominent Democrats who have done the same.

"Once we had our troops in, two years into a war, it was important that we do the best job of it," Obama said.

He then said Americans are turned off by the Clinton style of campaigning.

"They have decided to run a relentlessly negative campaign. I don't think anyone who is paying attention can deny that," he said.

Clinton is in a tough battle against Obama, made more difficult by her vote in favor of the 2002 authorization for war in Iraq, which anti-war Democrats have used to criticize her. Clinton counters that she did what she thought was best at the time, but she never thought the authorization would be used to launch a preemptive war.

"I made it very clear that my vote was not a vote for preemptive war. I said that on the floor, I said it consistently after that. It was a vote to put inspectors back in to determine what threat Saddam Hussein did in fact pose," she said.

Refining her position further, Clinton said she thinks inspectors would have eventually exposed a lack of weapons and that would have led to the toppling of now-deceased Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from within.

"I believe, if the inspectors had been allowed to do their work, we would've learned that what Saddam Hussein had constructed was a charade. It could have very well brought him down by his own people," she said.

Clinton said if elected president, she will start pulling troops out of Iraq 60 days after her inauguration. Her plan envisions a quick beginning to the withdrawal followed by the removal of one to two brigades a month.

"At the same time, I will put increasing pressure on the Iraqi government. I will engage in a full diplomatic effort to work with the countries in the region and others who have an interest in the stability of Iraq," she said.

In her appearance on the Sunday morning talk show, Clinton argued that the Iraqi government is finally taking action to make political changes because they know time is running out before the next U.S. election, and afterward they won't have U.S. forces to protect them anymore."From my perspective, part of the reason that the Iraqis are doing anything is because they see this election happening and they know they don't have much time, that the blank check that George Bush gave them is about to be torn up," the Democratic presidential candidate said.

"The Iraqi government, they watch us, they listen to us. I know very well that they follow everything that I say. And my commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009 is a big factor, as it is with Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, those of us on the Democratic side. It is a big factor in pushing the Iraqi government to finally do what they should have been doing all along," she added.

But she added that Obama has frequently refused to vote on difficult issues, and that is not the kind of president America needs.

"You know, Senator Obama voted 'present' 130 times in the state Senate. When you're president, you can't vote 'present.' You have to make a decision. Sometimes it's a split-second decision. You don't have time to, you know, think about it. You've got to actually decide," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.