Hillary Clinton was sworn in as the Senator from New York on January 3, 2001. With this, she achieved the distinction of becoming the first woman to have been appointed to an elected office either while or after serving as the first lady of the United States.
As the Senator, Hillary Clinton worked on many senatorial committees, which also included the Committee for Armed Services. After the devastating attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, Hillary Clinton gave full support to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution. However, she became highly critical the way the-then US President, George W Bush handled the war. Fearing that deployments were affecting the regular and reserve forces and in a bid to lessen the strain, Clinton co-introduced legislation. This would raise the numbers of the regular US army by about 80,000 soldiers.
Other measures undertaken by Hillary Clinton were a vote against two major tax cut packages introduced by President Bush. These included the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.
Hillary Clinton easily won the re-election to the US Senate in 2006. During her second term, she opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007. Following the 2007-08 financial crisis, Hillary Clinton supported the proposed bailout of the U.S. financial system.