Sen Clinton admitted to misspeaking when she said she’d been “under sniper fire” during a landing at a military base in Bosnia in 1996 — but denied that her comments represented a pattern of embellishment.

“I just disagree with that,” she said. “I made a mistake. I had a different memory, and my staff and others have all kind of come together trying to sort [it] out.”

Clinton has been under more metaphorical fire for her claim last week that snipers had forced her to run to her car, head down, instead of holding a planned welcoming ceremony at the Tuzla base — when video from the event clearly shows her shaking hands with well wishers and greeting an 8 year old girl on the tarmac.

While the campaign says she merely misspoke at an event in Washington last week, the Obama campaign sent out three separate events in which Sen Clinton mentioned running from the plane because of sniper threats — arguing that Clinton was misleading, not misspeaking.

Clinton now says that while she may have been fuzzy on the details, there were definite security concerns. “We were very much told by the Secret Service and the military that we were going into a war zone, and that we had to be conscious of that,” she said. “We certainly did take precautions. There is no doubt about that and I remember that very clearly. But I did make a mistake in talking about it the last time and recently.”

“That happens, it proves I’m human,” she said. “Which, you know, for some people is a revelation.” She later said she was joking when she told a Pittsburgh radio station that it was her first misstatement in 12 years, telling the press corps to “lighten up. I say millions of words every week, and theres’ a lot more room for error when you’re talking as much as I’m talking .”

Trying to move past the incident, Clinton argued that the discussion should be about the foreign policy credentials of the two Democratic rivals. “Look, this is really about what policy experience we have and who’s ready to be commander in chief, and I’m happy to put my experience up against Senator Obama’s any day.”

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